Trump's America, March 2017: Using His Inside VOICE

which tbf isn't a nothing statement if it happens

The salty investigative reporter is kind of fun

tbh I kind of felt like this was going to be a non-story when I saw that maddow was reporting it. if it was the real deal it would go to wapo or the nytimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaC48KClhVA

if his full tax returns ever get released, it's going to be either after he's already been taken down for something else, or after the world is destroyed

if his tax-returns were totally non-incriminating, the smartest chess move would be to maintain their secrecy as though they were evidence of murder

otm

Would all the alleged illicit Russian funds coming in even be a part of an individuals tax return anyway?

well I think more they're trying to find Russian financial ties that are legit, but look shady when viewed in the context of Russian meddling in the election. there won't be a "ILLIGAL SOVIET MONEY" line item.

already in response to this news all of Twitter has turned into an idiot convention with everybody being a keynote speaker

This should be embarrassing to Maddow and MSNBC

More embarrassing are the Eichenwalds of the Twitter pretending this wasn't a terrible joke they're playing on the center-left

The tax forms were sent to David Cay Johnston, a former New York Times reporter who covered the Internal Revenue Service for years and has written a book on Mr. Trump. Appearing with Ms. Maddow, he said he had received the forms “over the transom” and did not know who had sent them. He suggested that they might even have been sent by Mr. Trump himself.

especially embarrassing if they put up a fucking countdown clock for documents released by trump

done getting excited for any bit of news anymore. just sick of how difficult it is to take this simpering orangutan down

2 pages and a year in which he paid taxes? the presumption has to be that this came from the Trump camp to distract from Comey and Trumpcare carnage.

He used the $900 million tax break to essentially pay his taxes for the next 20 years -- that's the conclusion? OK?

I'll concede this much: this farrago Keeps the Story Alive, I suppose.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C67GGKZU8AA4dF2.jpg

lol

chances these were leaked by Trump himself? who else would have access to only the first 2 pages of his returns?

the prostitutes

Like I noted, there was chatter this was related to that 2004/5 defamation lawsuit, in which a Trump biographer claimed he was not worth what he said he was worth. The tax docs, as such, might have been entered into evidence back then.

Those other leaked docs were only the first couple of pages too, right?

Anyway, this was dumb. Maddow is an idiot. Didn't she have a chance to read it first? I mean, keep digging, but come on:

http://d3nvjzy0yxc2qv.cloudfront.net/bucket/specialalcaponesvault/anotherwall.mpg.jpg

uh

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/841825498091134976/photo/1

lol

be serious, these weren't leaked by trump. these were entered into court records in a way other years were not, so it's not necessarily a surprise they came out, he's not smart enough to think it's a good move to leak them, and in any case, it's not a good move.

it's not a headfake. they are idiots.

6, 7 and 8 here are bs (AMT is a minimum. you're not saving money by paying it. "Each year a taxpayer must pay the greater of an alternative minimum tax (AMT) or regular tax.") but the rest seems about right

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/841833971700899841

that said, the democrats should be talking about healthcare

even if they were real no supporter of his gives a shit about whether he paid taxes or not. in fact they might like that he didn't. in fact he bragged about not paying taxes duh. in sum, this is all totally stupid and so is that 'tax march' planned for april. bad optics that only serves to make liberal folk feel superior

So when Comey shrugs "nope" tomorrow what happens next? Does Trump just remain impossible to ruin as he flirts with massive self-own disaster every exhausting week?

maddow has been going so hard on the idea of some lurking, explosive scandal wrt foreign ties. rn it seems like a bad and unnecessary horse to bet on.

because ratings

that said, the democrats should be talking about healthcare

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, March 14, 2017 8:21 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My rep is, relentlessly, and I'm super proud to be represented by her. Fwiw.

Didn't this already 'leak' last year?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-got-a-big-break-on-2005-taxes-1458249902

Does Trump just remain impossible to ruin as he flirts with massive self-own disaster every exhausting week?

With a GOP Congress?
Yes.

What will ruin him, if anything, are Republican policies that people actually despise, like killing Medicare and blowing up the ACA for rich-people tax cuts.

So many people still seem to believe in the Good Republican - either that Trump's grift and inanity are anomalies in the party or that someone is waiting in the wings to heroically challenge and investigate him. There are no good Republicans. Not even everyone's sweet old great-aunt who thinks she's voting for Eisenhower again.

Is this whole tax thing any more screwy than his son-in-law/Presidential adviser cutting a sweetheart 400 million property deal in NYC with some Chinese firm.

less so, i'm thinking

if maddow had built up her show around a detailed examination of trump and kushner's chinese and russian real estate loans/overpayments/bailouts it would have had much more of an impact imo, both for the audience and on future news cycles

maddow loves sinking her teeth into a scandal but she almost always chooses these non-stories, it's bizarre

I like Maddow a lot but this was a dud. Doesnt matter though bc everyone's gonna forget about it in a couple days anyway, unless Trump decides to tweet about Maddow going to jail in which case we get to talk about that for weeks

maddow loves sinking her teeth into a scandal but she almost always chooses these non-stories, it's bizarre

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand)

it's intentional, actually. her bosses probably instruct her to tread lightly around real scandals. like trump's birtherism, comey's campaign interference, the benghazi thing. none of which she touched, when it might have made some difference if she did. but now that trump has actually won, she's all about these russian pseudo-scandals. maddow makes 7M a year, btw.

he's not smart enough to think it's a good move to leak them, and in any case, it's not a good move.

John Barron thinks he is, and by the way, it's a brilliant move

Increasingly interested as to when Trump dumps the new health proposal. (At this point I think it's a matter of time.) It's worth noting Ryan's suddenly sounding VERY whiny:

https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/841994819396370432

“Does anybody really believe that a reporter, who nobody ever heard of, “went to his mailbox” and found my tax returns? @NBCNews FAKE NEWS!”

ok so now I'm convinced Trump leaked this himself

xp it is interesting that, if this is the health bill everyone ran on last year, nobody knew anything about this bill until last week hm

Josh Marshal:

Health care politics resonate like nothing else. They cut across President Trump's coalition like a scythe. If you're looking for the political battle that will damage President Trump and his party it is Obamacare repeal. Of course, there are few issues before the political nation today that will more affect the lives of people across the country, especially the most vulnerable, the least politically powerful. So there's no trade-off between 'politics' and things that effect people's lives.

The GOP and President Trump are now woefully exposed with a deeply unpopular reform, deep in enemy territory with little hope of an organized retreat. The Senate GOP wants to go left; the House GOP wants to go right. And you're already seeing a growing chorus from the feral Trump right that Paul Ryan has led Trump into a trap and he, Ryan, should be forced to pay the price.

This can break Trump if his opponents can organize effectively, maybe even if they can't.

His larger point: Russia and immigration policies won't break Trump. Health care repeal will.

yup

be serious, these weren't leaked by trump. these were entered into court records in a way other years were not, so it's not necessarily a surprise they came out, he's not smart enough to think it's a good move to leak them, and in any case, it's not a good move.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, March 14, 2017 11:18 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

battles can obv be fought simultaneously but we really need to stop looking for some smoking gun that's going to remove trump from office. the possibility of 25 million people losing health insurance because of a shitty policy is much more potent than russia/tax returns/etc

Death by a thousand cuts is my preference though. Why is there such a need to focus on one thing to the exclusion of others? The Clinton campaign did that (with his bad manners, bigotry and buffoonery, to the exclusion of his horrible business record and the inanity of his policy ideas) and here we are.

No one topic is going to break this coalition or this administration up. You don't know which straw will be the last one for different people.

and this shitty policy will implicate not only trump but the whole GOP so yea josh marshall otm there