Things Will Likely Start Hitting the Fan for the Trumpster

Sure, we've all seen and heard this in the last 24 hours. The District Attorney of Manhattan has received The Donald's tax returns.

Added to that, however, is this added note from his own former attorney, Michael Cohen. Mr. Cohen says it's very likely he, Trump, if not also Ivanka and Donald Jr, his kids, will do jail time.

Oh, yeah. It looks like it's going to start getting really good. Pass the popcorn.

Donald J Trump Legacy, Part II

Thanks, Mr. President. Again, thanks. So much. 

(click on picture for easier reading)

Thanks, Republicans.

That's quite the guy you got there. Quite the guy you foisted on us all, on the nation.

The Donald J Trump Legacy, Part I

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, what he did. And what he most certainly didn't do.

Thanks, Mr. President. Thanks, Mr. Trump.

Thanks, Republicans.

For nothing.

Because that's what good we got from this guy. 

Nothing. 

Literally nothing. Zero.

More Trumpian HIts Today

 This President and his Presidency and administration have all repeatedly stunned me in the last 3-1/2 years. Now the news on him each day surprises if not shocks me.  Check these beauties out today.

Biden Will Make America Lead Again - WSJ

And that's not a big enough endorsement but note who and where it's from, folks. This is from very Right Wing and very conservative Rupert Murdoch and his ultra-conservative Wall Street Journal. That alone is stunning. And naturally very welcome.

This broke today.

Tax records show Trump maintains bank account in China

President Trump's tax records reportedly show that he maintains a bank account in China controlled by Trump International Hotels Management LLC. Trump also reportedly has bank accounts in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The president's foreign bank accounts are reportedly held under corporate names and as a result don't appear on the president's public financial disclosure forms.

More on the same topic.

Claims of 'Extensive' Trump Corruption in China Featured in Controversial Steele Dossier

Potentially damaging details of President Donald Trump's business ties in China have emerged with just weeks to go until the presidential election in another body blow for a re-election campaign undermined by allegations of criminality, impropriety and corruption.

The New York Times revealed Tuesday that Trump International Hotels Management maintained a previously undisclosed bank account in China, which paid more than $180,000 in taxes to the Chinese government between 2013 and 2015.

I add this one just because the detail in the title is good and important.

Donald Trump has a secret bank account in China that he left off his financial disclosure statements

Can you imagine this being true for any other President but this one? I can't. It's like when he conjectured publicly at one of his campaign rallies last week that he would think about leaving the country if he loses this election.  What other President has EVER said or even suggested such a thing?

Yesterday, he collapsed.

Donald Trump leaves contentious '60 Minutes' interview with Lesley Stahl, goes on Twitter attack

He's so fragile he can't do a complete interview with Lesley Stahl for CBS' "60 Minutes."  Again, Republicans, thanks so very much. That's quite the guy you have there.

This President is no way doing himself any favors, I'll say that. At least we have that going for us all.

Then there's this bit of huge, good to great news.

Biden holds massive cash advantage over Trump

And check out how much more.

Biden Campaign Enters Final Stretch With Nearly Three Times As Much Cash As Trump’s

I don't care what you say, that's hope right there, folks.

Finally today, there's this not insignificant note.

Lawyers at firm used by Trump donate $90,000 to Biden, $50 to president

That's gotta' hurt.  I hope.

Let's do this.

86 45

BYEDON

More:

Biden heavily outspends Trump in closing weeks of campaign

Can you see it? Can you see the blue wave? Wednesday Good News Roundup

Trump's promise to give everyone free antibody treatments isn't just a lie, it's impossible

This President Is In a World of Hurt Now

This is what I'm talking about, folks. 

 

Yesterday and yesterday's breaking article from the New York Times is, I think, a turning point in this presidential election. Watch for it tomorrow night. I think this is and has been now, already, a watershed moment for us, for the nation, for the people and against this President and even his political party.

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw·

A lot of Americans want to know: Will Chris Wallace ask Trump on Tuesday night: “Mr. Trump, to whom do you owe that $410M?

Then check out just some, only some of the headlines that have developed in the last 24 hours.

Former Trump housekeeper: He 'only paid $750 a year in taxes and calls all immigrants deadbeats'

Trump has $1.1 BILLION in personally guaranteed loans coming due in next two years - Forbes reporter

Trump's Tax Return's Liabilities make him a Prime Target for Foreign Influence

Undocumented immigrants respond to Trump's returns: We've paid our taxes—why haven't you?

And his reaction to the NYT report and all that's going on.

TRUMP'S PSYCHOTIC SUNDAY Tweetstorm Defies All Reason, Decency, and Honesty

And then it seems like Trump's big issue for Biden was something about Biden being on or doing drugs?

Biden neuters trump over his drug test challenge

Not done there, it seems there is apparently more, possibly much more, that is about to hit the fan news this week, shortly.

Another Trump Bombshell On Its Way

From London, where Cambridge Analytica Ltd (CA) was a British political consulting firm that combined misappropriation of digital assets, data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis with strategic communication during electoral processes to help Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. There’s a long sordid history and though the company was forced to close operations in 2018 in the course of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, related firms still exist (notably Emerata), and the history has a number of political characters and associations.

Channel 4 News

@Channel4News

Tonight at 7pm:

EXCLUSIVE: Channel 4 News investigation reveals a huge Trump campaign data leak, exposing how 3.5 million Black Americans were listed as ‘Deterrence’ - to try to stop them voting in 2016. #DeterringDemocracy

Not even done there, it seems the children may also be in some trouble.

Ivanka Trump is in deep trouble over Donald Trump’s tax returns

This is from October, 2018 but shows that he, Jared, is in the same boat as his very unpatriotic, tax skipping father.

Jared Kushner Paid No Federal Income Tax for Years 

Tomorrow evening's presidential election debate has now been turned on its head, so to speak.I think if Donald Trump's political career were a house, it would quite likely be collapsing about now.

86 45

BYEDON

Republican Party President Donald J Trump and Taxes

There is an excellent article in yesterday's NY Times on this Republican Party President Donald Trump and his taxes. Following is just a bit of the article.

The President's Taxes.

LONG-CONCEALED RECORDS SHOW TRUMP’S CHRONIC LOSSES AND YEARS OF TAX AVOIDANCE

Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.

The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.

Emoluments Clause of our Constitution, anyone?

Then check this out.

Confidential records show that starting in 2010 he claimed, and received, an income tax refund totaling $72.9 million. The president’s estranged personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen, recalled Mr. Trump’s showing him a huge check from the U.S. Treasury some years earlier and musing "that he could not believe how stupid the government was for giving someone like him that much money back."

However much money you and I made, we paid more taxes, much more, than this Republican Party President Donald J "Mr. Patriot" Trump.

Oh, yeah. It's time.

86 45

Absolutely.

BYEDON

Quote of the Day -- Presidential Pandemic Edition

Thanks, Mr. President!

Thanks, Republicans!

That Trump/GOP Budget?

With this President and the GOP presenting cuts in government programs, I offer this response.



Again.  We are #Strongertogether

What Is It With KCPT and White People?

(crackers.  far as the eye can see).

Okay, so I asked here 3 weeks ago about our local PBS station, KCPT and their local, weekly news program, "Ruckus" when they had a fully bleached-white guest panel.  I will note that, since then, for whatever reason, they've wisely and kindly had mixed-race guests. Hopefully, that will go into the future.

Now, this week, their local news program "Kansas City Week in Review" with the very British and wonderful Nick Haines discussed two issues this week--the upcoming Missouri tobacco tax and the Johnson County Public Safety tax.

On neither issue was their even one "person of color."

Just saying.

Now, we know there are no Black or Hispanic people in Johnson County, sure. (Right?). That's why everyone moved out there, all those years ago, of course. And still, to this day, we know there are no "people of color" in any positions of authority, in government offices out there. I'm just sure of it. (Is it even legal?).

But on that first question? The Missouri state tobacco tax?

Nothing but white people?

Over the entire state?

Just asking.

Link:  Kansas City Week in Review - KCPT

Donald Trump: Truth Bender

Articles from across media in the last 24 hours.

I saw this one yesterday, with video, showing as much.

Tim Tebow Reveals Trump LIED About 

Him Speaking At GOP Convention

Then there's this one from the head of the IRS. I only saw it today but it's from last March.

IRS Chief: “Trump Is A Liar, 

We Audited Him

Finally, this one from today's New York Times

Donald Trump's Deals Rely on Being Creative With the Truth

Anyone see a pattern here, folks?

And people think Hillary's a liar?

Additional link:

161 Silicon Valley Leaders Warn America

What Does Rex Sinquefield Gain By Messing With Kansas City?

So once again, rich, billionaire, St. Louisan Rex Sinquefield tries yet one more time to have Kansas Cititans vote on and, for him, hopefully do away with our 1% city tax.

Here's a guy who's from St. Louis, for pity's sake and a billionaire but he wants to mess with this city across the state, a city he doesn't even live in---and he's already wealthy---yet he has to mess with Kansas City and Kansas Citians and their taxes.

What is his gain in this?

Why doesn't he leave us alone? Why doesn't he leave us all alone?

Is this not one of the best, if not the best example of a wealthy person trying to have his way with the rest of the state, with the middle-, lower- and working-classes, if not the rest of the nation?

Trying to buy the state's next governor  with Catherine Hanaway and the next Lt. Governor as he's been trying to do, I understand. It's still  wrong and deeply so but that I understand.

What he gets,real or imagined, from draining Kansas City's tax coffers, thatI don't get.

Kansas' Money Solution?

It's well known now that Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback and all his political party cohorts over in Topeka at the state capitol screwed up their state's budget with "trickle down economics" ideas--that is, slashing tax rates and then waiting for tax coffers to fill, instead, because business would (somehow) rather magically appear and, they said, even increase.

Now, we see, yet again, how this idea is a terrible and non-working idea. Instead of bringing in more money, it actually does just the opposite. Kansas now needs approximately 280 million dollars for its budget because of this terribly failed Republican idea, imposed on Kansas and Kansans.

So, a possible solution?

Perhaps Kansas needs to look no further than next door, to Colorado:

Crime down and revenue up in Colorado since start of Marijuana Legalization

Crime in Colorado’s capital city, Denver, has dropped by more than a tenth, local law enforcement data reveals, and the state as a whole is expected to collect around $30 million in revenue this year as a result of weed taxes.

Economically speaking, rolling back the weed ban in Colorado has done wonders as well. The Associated Press reported this week that nearly $19 million in recreational marijuana was sold throughout the state in just the month of March, with $1.9 million of that going immediately to Denver to be divvied up by lawmakers to various state programs.

By the end of the year, weed taxes are expected to net Colorado around $30 million, which as of this week will be used on a plan that puts that money into mostly child drug use prevention and outreach, the AP reported, which means more school nurses and public education efforts funded by marijuana excises. The New York Times reported this week that those taxes have so far provided the state with around $12.6 million. According to Reuters, the latest year-end projection in total revenue generated is around $98 million—exceeding the state’s original estimate by 40 percent.

Would it be a total panacea for the Jayhawks? No, certainly not. Colorado is a much more populated state so the revenue wouldn't be as large. But could it help? Colorado's example seems to show it would, yes.

It would bring in more money for the state and it could free up the police to work on other, more important issues and problems, including a reduction in crime and crime rates.

At any rate, Kansas needs solutions to their money problems, again, thanks to Sam Brownback and all the Republicans in the Statehouse and all those who elected them into office. 

This could be a not-so-small part of that solution and get the side benefit of possibly lowering crime, too.

Pressure Building for the Nation's Infrastructure--and Maybe for the People

It does seem as if finally,finally pressure may be building in our media for some kind of infrastructure bill from this Congress.

And let's face it, the only way this is going to happen is if the people are for it and if it's reflected in our media.

Here's the first indicator. I saw it yesterday:

America's rotting empire: Billionaires galore and a crumbling infrastructure

More proof we're in rapid decline: Not a single U.S. city currently ranks among the world's most livable

America has the most billionaires in the world, but not a single U.S. city ranks among the world’s most livable cities. Not a single U.S. airport is among the top 100 airports in the world. Our bridges, road and rail are falling apart, and our middle class is being guttered out thanks to three decades of stagnant wages, while the top 1 percent enjoys 95 percent of all economic gains.

A rigged tax code and a bloated military budget are starving the federal and state governments of the revenue it needs to invest in infrastructure, which means today America looks increasingly like a second rate nation, and now new data shows America’s intellectual resources are also in decline.

For the past three decades, the Republican Party has waged a dangerous assault on the very idea of public education. Tax cuts for the rich have been balanced with spending cuts to education. During the New Deal era of the 1940s to 1970s, public schools were the great leveler of America. They were our great achievement. It was universal education for all, but today it’s education for those fortunate enough to be born into wealthy families or live in wealthy school districts. The right’s strategy of defunding public education leaves parents with the option of sending their kids to a for-profit school or a theological school that teaches kids our ancestors kept dinosaurs as pets.

“What kind of future society the defectors from the public school rolls envision I cannot say. However, having spent some time in the Democratic Republic of Congo—a war-torn hellhole with one of those much coveted limited central governments, and, not coincidentally, a country in which fewer than half the school-age population goes to public school—I can say with certainty that I don’t want to live there,” writes Chuck Thompson in Better off Without Em.

Then, this Sunday evening, CBS News' "60 Minutes" is doing a segment, thank goodness, on America's crumbling infrastructure. However long overdue, at least they're finally doing it now:

Is the United States falling apart? Roads and bridges are crumbling, airports are out of date, and the vast majority of seaports are in danger of becoming obsolete. All the result of decades of neglect. Tune in Sunday for Steve Kroft's #60Minutes report on America's infrastructure:

Preview: Falling Apart - 60 Minutes Videos

60 Minutes Video - The roads and bridges Americns drive

So here's to hope. Here's to the idea that we're coming to a time and place where we, the people "get it" and so, demand more, far more, from our government and representative in government.

Hopefully we can get these jobs, the improvements and updates to our infrastructure and the boost the economy needs, all three. And naturally, the sooner the better (from this do-nothing, "sue the President" Congress).

It shouldn't all just be for the wealthy and corporations.

These Are the People Who Want to Run Our Government

This is rich. I got an email from Prince Reibus--I mean Reince Preibus--Chair of the Republican Party, saying we should abolish the IRS.

Right.

This is the head of one of two of our political parties and naturally they want to run our entire government, but this is one of the "solutions" they have our nation.

Right. Abolish the IRS.

How, exactly are we raise the money required to run this nation without the IRS? How does that work?

Fact is, it doesn't. It doesn't work, it can't work. fun as that sounds, doing away with the IRS--it's like thinking we could all just not go to our jobs one day--it's not a solution. It's not realistic. It can't work.

We have a nation of over 315 million people. How do you run such an organization with no money brought in? How does that work? In what alternate universe is that possible? All nations have infrastructure that must be built and maintained in order to function. It's with taxes we do that.

These people want to run our government but first, they seem to hate that government and second, they want to dismantle it. Well, they want to dismantle it when they don't want to, as President George W Bush and Ronald Reagan, both, did, grow it incredibly.

They've been quoted as saying they still want to do away with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. One, Mitch McConnell, was recently quoted saying that very thing to a crowd he though he was speaking to privately.

That's not to say our tax system doesn't need fixing, not at all, far from it. But to fix it, we need to end the ability of corporations and the wealthy to purchase whatever laws and tax laws they wish, to the nation's peril, by ending campaign contributions. Until we do that, nothing will change.

They don't deserve another chance with our government. They don't deserve another chance with our nation. They don't deserve another chance with us.

Are you paying attention, Kansas?

Kansas vs. Missouri

Why on Earth would Missouri want to follow this lead?

After Hobby Lobby, let's boycott Walgreens while we're at it

Yes sir, if this corporate tax plan goes through, boycott Walgreens:

Renouncing Corporate Citizenship

A little less than two years ago, Gregory D. Wasson, the chief executive of Walgreen, sought a series of tax breaks from Illinois, where his company is based.

“We are proud of our Illinois heritage,” he said at the time. “Just as our stores and pharmacies are health and daily living anchors for the communities we serve, we as a company are now recommitted to serving as an economic anchor for northeastern Illinois.”

The state gave Walgreen $46 million in corporate income tax credits over 10 years in exchange for a pledge to create 500 jobs and invest in upgrading its offices. The state also provided $625,000 in training money and $875,000 in other tax incentives.

Mr. Wasson’s actions, however, could soon run counter to his words. The same chief executive who said he was so “proud of our Illinois heritage” is now considering moving the company’s headquarters to Switzerland as part of a merger with Alliance Boots, a European drugstore chain.

Why? To lower Walgreen’s tax bill even further.

Alarmingly, dozens of large United States companies are contemplating the increasingly popular tax-skirting tactic known as an inversion. Under the strategy, companies merge with foreign rivals in countries with lower tax rates and then reincorporate there while still enjoying the benefits of doing a large part of their business in the United States.

And besides being deeply unpatriotic and just blatantly wrong, here's what else Walgreens gets from America:

In Walgreen’s case, an inversion would be an affront to United States taxpayers. The company, which also owns the Duane Reade chain in New York, reaps almost a quarter of its $72 billion in revenue directly from the government; it received $16.7 billion from Medicare and Medicaid last year.

This is obscene.  We need to stop this nonsense.

Tax Day

''It's that time of year again, April 15, taxes. 

I know it's depressing, but just remember, you're paying for roads, bridges, hospitals, and an army to keep the nation free. 

Unfortunately that nation is Afghanistan.'' 

—BILL MAHER

"Taxation Trap"

By blues legend T Model Ford, who passed, just last June:

America, land of the incarcerated

And then we blame the incarcerated.

Brilliant.