The debts coming due in the next few years, which he personally guaranteed, would ruin him...although he's already ruined.
This looks mobby to me: "That equation is a key element of the alchemy of Mr. Trump’s finances: using the proceeds of his celebrity to purchase and prop up risky businesses, then wielding their losses to avoid taxes."
Also mobster stuff: "Mr. Trump has an established track record of stiffing his lenders. But the tax returns reveal that he has failed to pay back far more money than previously known: a total of $287 million since 2010."
What a piece of shit.
Seize it all.
"If the auditors ultimately disallow Mr. Trump’s $72.9 million federal refund, he will be forced to return that money with interest...a total that could exceed $100 million. He could also be ordered to return the state & local refunds based on the same claims."
Vanky in trouble.
"Another, more legally perilous possibility is that the fees were a way to transfer assets to his children without incurring a gift tax."
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Elaborating on #DebateNight thoughts that I shared on last night's Five 8 show.
[THREAD]
1/ Why the Dem freakout after the debate? We are all traumatized by 2016, and Biden's performance in the debate triggered our collective trauma. "No! Not again!" Hence the panic.
2/ Where does the panic come from? Is it fear that Joe can't do the job? No. Because we know he can. He's done it for 3.5 years at the highest possible level. The government is in good hands with Joe/Kamala. No worries there. None.
Alito's comments here are similar to remarks made by Rev. C. John McCloskey, Opus Dei priest and spiritual godfather to the Catholic extremist Leonard Leo cabal, to Charles Pierce 21 years ago. He, too, regarded the so-called culture wars as a Manichean struggle.
"Do I think it’s possible for someone who believes in the sanctity of marriage, the sanctity of life...to choose to survive w/ people who think it’s OK to kill women & children or for—quote—homosexual cpls to exist and be recognized? No, I don’t think that’s possible,” he said.
"But, unfortunately, in the past, these types of things have tended to end this way. If American Catholics feel that’s troubling, let them. I don’t feel it’s troubling at all.”
Like many leaders of the reactionary right—Mike Johnson, Mike Davis, Stephen Miller, and so on—the current head of the Heritage Foundation has a dull, forgettable name: Kevin Roberts.
[THREAD]
2/ Roberts has a winsome smile, a PhD in U.S. history, a background in academia, & a well-earned reputation as a nice guy. Who could have imagined that this bright, friendly Gen Xer would be leading a Christian conservative counter-reformation—a crusade to end American democracy?
3/ In 2013, Roberts, who is Catholic, became the second president of Wyoming Catholic College, a strict, almost monastic institution est. in 2007 that provides “a rigorous immersion in...the spiritual heritage of the Catholic Church”—and that will throw you out if you hook up.
If action is character, as F. Scott Fitzgerald proposed, then it is instructive to look at the life of Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson in reverse, Benjamin Button style. . .
[THREAD]
1/ It is the night before Veteran’s Day, 2021. On his primetime Fox News program, Tucker Carlson argues that the U.S. should back Russia, and not Ukraine, in the escalating conflict between the two countries. “Why would we take Ukraine’s side and not Russia’s side?”
2/ He insists that choosing Putin’s dictatorship over Zelensky’s democracy is a no-brainer because of “energy reserves.” This is either breathtaking ignorance of the region’s history or straight-up Kremlin propaganda. Or, I suppose, both.
Should the media try to present Elise Stefanik (R-Machiavelli) as a moderate, throwback, Paul Ryan Republican and not the ruthless, power-mad opportunist in league with Dear Leader Donald that she is, please consider her career trajectory:
[THREAD]
1/ Carpetbags her way to a House seat
Sidles up to Nunes (her doppelgänger) and to Jim Jordan (which makes that hateful troll look tall)
Comes out against impeachment
2/ Usurps Liz Cheney in the GOP House leadership structure
Supports conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen
Joins Ken Paxton’s treasonous lawsuit attempting to overturn the election results