The Art of the Donald Trumpocalypse

[Isgrimnur]

Anyone who tries to openly riot if Trump loses will get what they deserve.

Napoleon had a solution for that. Can you still get grapeshot?

I think it's the cannon that might be the bigger sourcing issue. Might be better off just going with shotgun slugs.

[Isgrimnur]

Huh. The Huffington Post did an article on the CB-3000 back in 2012. I never would have guessed.

[hepcat]

Anyone who tries to openly riot if Trump loses will get what they deserve.

Is it still okay to riot if he wins though?

I was actually insinuating that privately rioting was okay. If Trump loses, knock over a planter in your home. Slap your cat. You know, really get in there and quietly riot.

[Isgrimnur]

But will I have to fight for my right to party? Do I have to tel anyone that we're not going to take it?

[$iljanus]

But will I have to fight for my right to party? Do I have to tel anyone that we're not going to take it?

Well I'm trying to tell you now it's sabotage.

[LordMortis]

Slap your cat. You know, really get in there

'thehell?

[hepcat]

Cats. It's a type of animal. They're small, furry creatures that exist solely to steal the breath from babies.

[Isgrimnur]

Cats. It's a type of animal. They're small, furry creatures that exist solely to steal the breath from babies.

HEY NOW! They also murder wildlife, too.

[Default]

But will I have to fight for my right to party? Do I have to tel anyone that we're not going to take it?

Well I'm trying to tell you now it's sabotage.

Well, you don't have to live like a refugee.

[Isgrimnur]

But will I have to fight for my right to party? Do I have to tel anyone that we're not going to take it?

Well I'm trying to tell you now it's sabotage.

Well, you don't have to live like a refugee.

Nor put on the red light.

[Enough]

But will I have to fight for my right to party? Do I have to tel anyone that we're not going to take it?

Well I'm trying to tell you now it's sabotage.

Well, you don't have to live like a refugee.

Nor put on the red light.

Indeed. You don't you have to say you love me.

[Unagi]

But will I have to fight for my right to party? Do I have to tel anyone that we're not going to take it?

Well I'm trying to tell you now it's sabotage.

Well, you don't have to live like a refugee.

Nor put on the red light.

Indeed. You don't you have to say you love me.

and the searches all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay if they'd put fifteen more miles behind her

[Smutly]

Slap your cat. You know, really get in there

'thehell?

I think I saw that movie.

[gilraen]

Apparently Trump campaign has just paid for a Twitter promotion. This showed up on my Twitter feed earlier today - it's not a retweet, and needless to say, I don't follow Trump on Twitter. Took me a moment to figure out why the hell I have Trump Jr's mug filling up half my screen (you can't tell from the embedded post, but in the timeline it says on the bottom "Promoted by Donald J. Trump").

How Twitter determines the target audience for their promoted posts is beyond me

Spoiler:

[Zarathud]

Do I get a chance to slap someone at the debate?

[Unagi]

Is it just me, or does Jr. just look like he is almost mocking Donald's signature smug-look.

It's just SO temptingly comical. (if it wasn't so terrifying and depressing)

[tgb]

Apparently Trump campaign has just paid for a Twitter promotion. This showed up on my Twitter feed earlier today - it's not a retweet, and needless to say, I don't follow Trump on Twitter. Took me a moment to figure out why the hell I have Trump Jr's mug filling up half my screen (you can't tell from the embedded post, but in the timeline it says on the bottom "Promoted by Donald J. Trump").

How Twitter determines the target audience for their promoted posts is beyond me

Spoiler:

Some faces just don't look complete without a fist in them.

[Grifman]

I was speaking specifically about his tax scandal, but the new hits keep on coming so fast that I can see why you wouldn't pick up on that. The tax scandal is Clintonian in the sense of being technically legal, ethically questionable, and too nuanced for ordinary Americans to understand.

IMO, there is nothing unethical about Trump using this provision of the tax law. The provision of the tax law used by Trump has been there since the early 1900's and has been supported and indeed, even expanded upon, both parties. Again the whole idea behind it is to help out businesses that struggled in prior years. If you had a loss that you are trying to dig yourself out of, even if you made a profit in a subsequent year, you might be hard pressed to come up with the cash to pay your taxes for several years. That's why this law was enacted and has been non-controversial for about 100 years now.

I can't stand Trump, but he did nothing ethically wrong, IMO - there is nothing shady or even unusual about what he did, many businesses of all types, big and small, can and have used this through the years.

Of course, his real mistake, was not releasing his returns as he should have, with a prepared explanations that could be given out to the press and explained by surrogates. Three months ago, this would have faded into the background, but this close the election? It only serves him right in some sense.

[Max Peck]

Assuming, of course, that this is the reason that he didn't want to release his returns in the first place.

[Holman]

Right. With the 1995 cat out of the bag, shouldn't Trump release all his returns in order to clear the air? It would deny Clinton a powerful attack at a time when that attack is hurting.

Every day he doesn't do so suggests that there are more skeletons in that closet.

[malchior]

I can't stand Drumpf, but he did nothing ethically wrong, IMO - there is nothing shady or even unusual about what he did, many businesses of all types, big and small, can and have used this through the years.

+1 - and more so this is likely an edge case. This isn't some common occurrence due to the tax code.

Of course, his real mistake, was not releasing his returns as he should have, with a prepared explanations that could be given out to the press and explained by surrogates. Three months ago, this would have faded into the background, but this close the election? It only serves him right in some sense.

This is true in a sense and it is his "fatal flaw" most likely. He is not great at looking down the board and seeing how things play out. He is a great in the moment personality. And that is what has made him so sluggish to change. When things work - he goes with them. When they don't he has almost no ability to react - he starts experimenting until he happens upon a story line that works. I believe that is why he constantly drops hints about bad things he might say. In the sense that he will definitely say them if his clumsy trial balloon works out. He is not some great thinker. It is just another piece of evidence why he is completely out of his league.

[Zarathud]

Grifman, the speculation is that Trump used those losses to create a structure where he could take massive personal income from the publicly traded Trump Organization, leaving it with with real estate that could no longer be depreciated (you can't depreciate an asset you declared as an operating loss). Investors in the publicly traded Trump organization invested expecting a regular real estate deal, but ended up with an uneconomic business.

The question is whether that was due to Trump's tax play. A massive operating tax loss in one year is often offset by the tax income you end up with after business conditions improve or loans are forgiven. If Trump scammed someone else into getting hit with his taxes (which is in his business character), he may have exposure to liability for fraud. It doesn't take a genius to make money when you're screwing over and defrauding your business partners.

There is ZERO chance Trump discloses if he wins the election. His tax returns are audited for a reason. We should know why -- and the coverup is the initial crime. The second crime may be that Trump's success is built on a fraud. But in any event it was built through a tax shelter -- which makes a lie of Trump's talk about his smarts and offense at having his taxes "squandered."

I think patriotism wasn't the right story to tell. It's that Trump is a phony based on lies and using the law to hide from his obligations. He's not an outsider, he'a a con man.

If they were just ordinary deductions, Trump would disclose and proclaim his YUGE tax returns. 1995 isn't under audit. But he's hiding something.

[GreenGoo]

IMO, there is nothing unethical about Trump using this provision of the tax law.

Agreed. While there is an attempt (it is election season after all) to make this into a huge scandal, it's not, and lots of people do the exact same thing. Even the "little" people. It doesn't make him a monster, but it also doesn't make him a genius. It's standard practice.

Assuming, of course, that this is the reason that he didn't want to release his returns in the first place.

Yeah, that's been my thinking as well. This can't be the reason, because all it does is show he's had such a major loss that he can use that loss to not pay taxes for over a decade. But that loss is already public knowledge. Maybe the exact amount wasn't, but it's not news that he's had catastrophic losses and declared (at least for businesses run by him, I don't recall specifics) bankruptcy more than once.

I assumed there would be some really iffy stuff in his returns. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Grifman, the speculation is that Trump used those losses to create a structure where he could take massive personal income from the publicly traded Trump Organization, leaving it with with real estate that could no longer be depreciated (you can't depreciate an asset you declared as an operating loss). Investors in the publicly traded Trump organization invested expecting a regular real estate deal, but ended up with an uneconomic business.
....

I think patriotism wasn't the right story to tell. It's that Trump is a phony based on lies and using the law to hide from his obligations. He's not an outsider, he'a a con man.

If they were just ordinary deductions, Trump would disclose and proclaim his YUGE tax returns. 1995 isn't under audit. But he's hiding something.

I certainly lean this way, but I hate Drumpf, although even the mildest investigation into his business practices shows that my hate is well founded. He's shyster, no question, although this particular return does nothing but show he's capable of failing YUGELY.

[tgb]

This is rich.

Short version: Trump used OPM donated to his foundation to get in good with various conservative PAC's over the last couple of years in order to help launch his candidacy.

I believe there's a term for that. Pay to win? Win to pay? Lay away? Something like that.


How much schadenfreude can a man endure?

[malchior]

Legal use of the tax code or not - it is politically very difficult for someone who is extremely wealthy to say they haven't paid taxes for over a decade. It just isn't a narrative that you can spin with people struggling to get by. It certainly undercuts his man of the people shtick. Anyway maybe there is fraud / maybe there isn't but he admits that he has been audited for 15 years constantly. You would think that if there was tax evasion or fraud it would have been uncovered by now. Almost sounds like the IRS saw something very unusual and then decided to keep on him to either catch the fraud eventually or keep them honest. Either way the lack of disclosure was probably due to this. And it truly is a no win for him. It just seems there was a gamble taken by his campaign that he could skate through without taking a major hit on taxes. It just didn't work out.

[tgb]

Having had more than my share of the IRS auditors and collections, I can say they probably stay on top of Trump because he's a Big Catch. They don't send someone like me to prison unless there's obvious fraudulent activity or willful evasion (i.e. not responding to the barrage of letters), and when they do it's not going to make the news.

But when the IRS can put a Trump or Willie Nelson or Wesley Snipes away, that's big news and serves to keep everyone else in line.

[Zarathud]

Even if Trump is kosher on his taxes (unlikely), the audits don't look at his business practices. His tax returns may provide evidence of other wrongdoing.

Bottom line -- Trump doesn't want to show his tax returns until it's too late. He's hiding something.

[Jeff V]

Even if Trump is kosher on his taxes (unlikely), the audits don't look at his business practices. His tax returns may provide evidence of other wrongdoing.

Bottom line -- Trump doesn't want to show his tax returns until it's too late. He's hiding something.

Trump is selling the organs of his migrant workers and trying to offset this income by claiming the sum is greater than the parts and therefore no matter how many livers or brains he sells, it's at a loss.

[Grifman]

Having had more than my share of the IRS auditors and collections, I can say they probably stay on top of Trump because he's a Big Catch.

It's not so much that he's a big catch but that the IRS goes where the money is. With limited resources, which are you going to audit - the guy on a salary with penny ante deductions or the billion dollar business? Most major corporations are audited on a regular basis, and certain industries more than others because of the ability shelter income.

[El Guapo]

Also in terms of political incentives, if you had a well-known rich person paying literally $0 in taxes, and the press found out about it, and the rich person *should* have been paying taxes, the IRS would be flayed mercilessly.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Trump is destroying NFL locker rooms!:

Back in the Bills locker room, however, Ryan’s staff was less impressed with the Republican candidate for president—and that their boss was backing him. A Bills player said when he learned Ryan had spoken at Trump’s rally, he simply couldn’t believe it. “Rex is such an open-minded guy, a really good person,” said the player, who asked not to be identified, fearing repercussions from the Bills. “But the fact he could back someone as closed-minded as Trump genuinely shocked me.”

The player, who is black, emphasized that teammates’ frustration with their coach’s public endorsement was not universal. But in private discussions, he said, “Some of the African-American players on the team weren’t happy about Rex doing that.”

Indeed, said another black player on the Bills who requested anonymity to speak freely about tensions swirling with a combination of protests led by Colin Kaepernick and a combustible candidate: “I see Trump as someone who is hostile to people of color, and the fact that Rex supports him made me look at him completely differently, and not in a positive way.”

Least surprising part of the article:

Ryan declined to comment, but at least one white Buffalo player—Richie Incognito, the offensive lineman notorious for a bullying scandal that included racial slurs and who has now become a force in the Bills clubhouse—insists that Trump’s winning message has resonated with NFL players like him.

[Kraken]

Grifman, the speculation is that Trump used those losses to create a structure where he could take massive personal income from the publicly traded Trump Organization, leaving it with with real estate that could no longer be depreciated (you can't depreciate an asset you declared as an operating loss). Investors in the publicly traded Trump organization invested expecting a regular real estate deal, but ended up with an uneconomic business.

See what I mean about "too nuanced for ordinary Americans to understand"?

[Grifman]

Grifman, the speculation is that Trump used those losses to create a structure where he could take massive personal income from the publicly traded Trump Organization, leaving it with with real estate that could no longer be depreciated (you can't depreciate an asset you declared as an operating loss). Investors in the publicly traded Trump organization invested expecting a regular real estate deal, but ended up with an uneconomic business.

That may be, but that's not what Democrats and the press are unfairly beating him up for. Though it's certainly no worse than having your father unfairly implicated in the Kennedy assassination

I feel little sympathy for someone who plays the "well, some people are saying, I don't know" game of rumor mongering about others while trying to look innocent of doing it. Trump is getting his own medicine here.

[Fitzy]

This article talks about three theories (with links to longer articles on each) on what Trump might have done. What I found interesting is that one is illegal and highly unlikely, but the other two were actual loopholes not intended by Congress. And they were loopholes fixed in 2002, voted for by then Senator Clinton.

If either of those two were true, it would be a huge incentive for Trump to not release any information on how he actually did it given he is taunting Clinton for not "fixing" the tax laws. Any other candidate I'd say there's no possible way they'd taunt their opponent knowing that she did do what he's taunting her with not doing. With Trump, I'm not sure.

[Alefroth]

Trump's operating loss in 1995 was 1.9% of all NOL in the U.S. that year

First, there is the issue of scope: The $916 million loss claimed on Trump's 1995 return accounted for 1.9% of all the net operating losses claimed by individual income taxpayers in the US in 1995.

[Rip]

A man spouting Nazi slogans disrupted a Donald Trump rally on Wednesday evening, but Trump supporters shouted him down and eventually escorted him out of the Reno, Nevada rally.


The man, who claimed to be 25-years-old and identified himself to CNN and other sources as Brady Garrett, arrived at the rally wearing a camouflage baseball cap and a seemingly brand new “State of Jefferson” T-Shirt. He carried small signs with supposed white supremacist slogans on them, and was quickly surrounded by members of the media excited to report on the incident.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... ts-chases/

[hepcat]

Trump hate competition. What's your point?

Wait...Hillary Goddamn Clinton?

[Defiant]

This Cards Against Humanity campaign is literally the coolest thing on the internet today. It decimates everything else.

Cards Against Humanity creates super PAC against Trump

[Rip]

SAVE THE DAY RESPONSE

[hepcat]

SAVE THE DAY RESPONSE

Wow, women AND an African American! How the hell did that slip by Trump's PR?