Maybe Donald Trump will finally go the way of Al Capone and crucify himself with his taxes. ProPublica has obtained property tax documents, using New York State’s freedom of information law, and sure enough, it appears there’s two sets of books, one to appease the IRS and another one to lure len...
Maybe Donald Trump will finally go the way of Al Capone and crucify himself with his taxes. ProPublica has obtained property tax documents, using New York State’s freedom of information law, and sure enough, it appears there’s two sets of books, one to appease the IRS and another one to lure lenders. ProPublica:
Taxes have long been a third rail for Trump. Long before he famously declined to make his personal returns public, a New York Times investigation concluded, Trump participated in tax schemes that involved “outright fraud,” and that he had formulated “a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns.” Trump’s former partners in Panama claimed in a lawsuit, which is ongoing, that Trump’s hotel management company failed to pay taxes on millions in fees it received. Spokespeople for Trump and his company have denied any tax improprieties in the past.
In February, Cohen told Congress that Trump had adjusted figures up or down, as necessary, to obtain loans and avoid taxes. “It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes,” Cohen testified, “and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.” […]
In response to ProPublica’s questions about the disparities, Laura Feyer, deputy press secretary for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, said of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, “The city is looking into this property, and if there has been any underreporting, we will take appropriate action.”
What Trump did was tell people what they wanted to hear, about how there was a great rise in leasing momentum and the building in question would soon be full. He backed up those claims with fraudulent records.
There can be legitimate reasons for numbers to diverge between tax and loan documents, the experts noted, but some of the gaps seemed to have no reasonable justification. “It really feels like there’s two sets of books — it feels like a set of books for the tax guy and a set for the lender,” said Kevin Riordan, a financing expert and real estate professor at Montclair State University who reviewed the records. “It’s hard to argue numbers. That’s black and white.”
What is ironic, is that Donald Trump spent his entire life trying to be a big shot in New York, to no avail. It’s very probable that his recent decision to make Florida his home state is based upon this investigation. The people that Trump spent a lifetime trying to impress, New Yorkers, may be the ones that finally take him to task. Good for them. It can’t happen soon enough.
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FOCUS: Katy Waldman | Joe Biden and the Perils of Good Intentions Katy Waldman, The New Yorker Waldman writes: "Americans have been on a long road trip with Joe Biden. The former Vice-President's hot mikes, his 'handsiness,' 'gaffes,' and 'loose-lipped and emotive manner' are all a matter of family lore." READ MORE
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John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Rise of Reality TV Politics
Laura McGann, Vox McGann writes: "The party of Donald Trump began almost 10 years ago to the day, when John McCain tapped Sarah Palin to join his ticket." READ MORE
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DHS Asks for 'Positive Gems' About War-Torn Countries to Justify Returning Immigrants Bobby Allyn, NPR Allyn writes: "In court documents released this week, internal emails from the Department of Homeland Security show that federal officials tried to prove countries were becoming safer, even when that was not the case, in order to justify ending Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war or natural disasters." READ MORE
Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control under Obama. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
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A women's march protesting the high levels of femicide endemic across Latin America. (photo: Reuters)
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What Obama Did After GOP Congressman Was Shot Puts Republicans To Shame
JUNE 14, 2017
President Barack Obama has traditionally displayed more class in one of his farts than any Republican can on his or her best day — and the aftermath of the shooting of GOP Congressman Steve Scalise, who has built a career opposing any and all gun regulations, was no different.
While Republicans generally ignore anything bad that happens to people they don’t like, Obama reached out to Senator Jeff Flake, who was gathered on the field with his fellow traitors Republicans when a crazed Jill Stein voter opened fire.
“This is particularly raw for those of us in Arizona,” says Flake, who flew home to Arizona with Obama in 2011 after a gunman shot Democratic Rep. Gabbi Giffords. The attack occurred after Sarah Palin promoted an image of a bullseye over Giffords’ name.
Flake says that Obama, unlike his own colleagues, did not discuss policy or any agenda.
President Obama once again showed us what a wonderful man he is. It’s a pity that his replacement isn’t even half the man he is.
Pete Souza, who worked as the White House photographer for former President Barack Obama, sent President Trump a subtle message on his Instagram.
On Wednesday night, Trump hosted right-wing provocateur Ted Nugent, failed vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and shitty musician Kid Rock for dinner at the White House, in what looked like a white trash gathering for the ages.
A truly repugnant scene from Wednesday night was a photo of Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin, and Kid Rock standing underneath an official portrait of former First Lady, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while making exaggerated poses and cheesy grins. In a post to her verified Facebook page, Shemane Nugent — wife of Ted — tagged the three using their official Facebook handles, but tagged the 2016 Democratic Presidential nominee with the words “Fuck Fake Bitches.”
In response to the photo, Pete Souza simply posted a photo from the Obama era, in which President Obama is seen with White House chief of staff Bill Daley, sitting underneath a portrait of President Ronald Reagan, a conservative icon. In the photo, the two appear to be discussing presidential business. Souza captioned the photo with the words, “Being respectful.”
While Souza didn’t publicly acknowledge the disrespectful photo Trump’s guests took next to the Clinton portrait, the timing of the photo is an obvious nod, given Souza’s penchant for using his Instagram platform to compare Trump’s behavior to Obama’s.
Jamie Green is a contributor for the Resistance Report covering the Trump administration, and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Donald Trump has a “dangerous mental illness” and is not fit to lead
the US, a…
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK
“I’ve worked with murderers and rapists. I can recognise dangerousness from a mile away. You don’t have to be an expert on dangerousness or spend fifty years studying it like I have in order to know how dangerous this man is.”
Donald Trump has a “dangerous mental illness” and is not fit to lead the US, a group of psychiatrists has warned during a conference at Yale University.
Mental health experts claimed the President was “paranoid and delusional”, and said it was their “ethical responsibility” to warn the American public about the “dangers” Mr Trump’s psychological state poses to the country.
Speaking at the conference at Yale’s School of Medicine on Thursday, one of the mental health professionals, Dr John Gartner, a practising psychotherapist who advised psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, said: “We have an ethical responsibility to warn the public about Donald Trump's dangerous mental illness.”
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Donald Trump responds to Paris shooting: 'It looks like another terrorist attack'
"... 2002 report in the Guardian claims that Pavarotti once gave such a lackluster performance at one of Trump's Atlantic City casinos that Trump demanded Pavarotti return his fee for the event. "
Trump's claim of friendship deserves a second look.
MIC.COM
During a joint press conference with the Prime Minister of Italy on Thursday, President Donald Trump praised late Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti and called him a "good friend of mine." But there's reason to doubt that alleged friendship.
Trump had taken to playing Pavarotti's rendition of "Nessun Dorma," a song from the final act of Puccini's famous opera Turandot, at stops along the campaign trail. The song ends with a repetition of the Italian word "Vincero," which translates to "I will win."
During the campaign, Pavarotti's widow, Nicoletta Mantovani, demanded that then-candidate Trump stop playing the works of her late husband at his campaign events.
In a letter from Pavarotti's widow and his three daughters the family told the Trump campaign that, "[T]he values of brotherhood and solidarity that Luciano Pavarotti upheld throughout his artistic career are incompatible with the world vision of the candidate Donald Trump."
There are other reasons to doubt the supposed friendship between Pavarotti and Trump. One account from a 2002 report in the Guardian claims that Pavarotti once gave such a lackluster performance at one of Trump's Atlantic City casinos that Trump demanded Pavarotti return his fee for the event.
“I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power,” he added.
Two things, Beauregard:
A) Hawaii is one of our fifty states (the fiftieth, in fact); and,
2) It's in that pesky "Constitution" thingie.
Hawaii has been a state since 1959, and it's technically an archipelago
CBSNEWS.COM
Last Updated Apr 20, 2017 5:49 PM EDT
Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday seemed to describe Hawaii as if it weren’t part of the U.S. (or possibly a lesser part) and expressed outrage that a federal judge had the ability to block the Trump administration’s travel ban.
“We are confident that the president will prevail on appeal and particularly in the Supreme Court, if not the 9th Circuit. So this is a huge matter,” Sessions, a former Republican senator from Alabama, said in an interview with radio host Mark Levin, surfaced by CNN on Thursday.
“I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power,” he added.
COMMENTS Wait a minute...is Alabama a state? I thought it was just a collection of trailer parks with racist, misogynist, white trash inbreds. I hear they use replicas of the Constitution document as kindling for the cross burnings.
It's hard to keep things straight about a faraway "island in the Pacific" when you're a Keebler elf and you spend all day in a tree making delicious cookies.
