They’re outraged, and women politicians aren’t afraid to show it
I'm told voters are in favor of that sort of thing, and it comes from the feeling of being superior.
The Globe is crying like a baby over the latest performance:
"Vermont's top economic development official says he hopes people will visit or even move here after the state was lampooned as a Caucasian paradise in a Saturday Night Live skit that aired over the weekend. The skit featured a group of people attending a "League of the South" meeting in which the white crowd was looking for an agrarian community where everyone could live in harmony "because every single person is white." Vermont is one of the whitest states in the country, but Community Development Secretary Michael Schirling invited people to come and see increasingly diverse communities and tourist destinations, including the African American Heritage Trail. Schirling says Vermont does lack a good hip-hop channel, but the Vermont Flannel Company sent the cast flannel for use in future skits."
You know what is one thing Kavanaugh hasn't been called yet -- a racist.
Letter for you, Brett:
"The Pentagon put its mail under quarantine after multiple packages suspected of containing the poison ricin were found at a Pentagon mail facility on Monday, a Defense Department spokesman said. Authorities found the packages during screening and turned the envelopes over to the FBI, officials said. A Defense Department official said the packages were addressed to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Admiral John Richardson, the chief of naval operations. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity."
Return address was Vermont (right next to New Hampshire), and they already found the suspect.
Now look who is bumping up against you:
Despite bulging retirement accounts, many don’t credit president
Ungratefuls that are not part of the team.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
It's become a toxic environment for Kavanaugh's judicial temperament:
"Trump’s EPA moving to loosen radiation limits" by Ellen Knickmeyer Associated Press October 02, 2018
WASHINGTON — The EPA is pursuing rule changes that specialists say would weaken the way radiation exposure is regulated, turning to scientific outliers who argue that a bit of radiation damage is actually good for you — like a little bit of sunlight.
That's what PG&E told the people of Hinckley about the chromium in the water, and what other corporate polluters have claimed these many years. They put it in retarded kids cereal right in this very state.
The government’s current, decades-old guidance says that any exposure to harmful radiation is a cancer risk, and critics say the proposed change could lead to higher levels of exposure for workers at nuclear installations and oil and gas drilling sites, medical workers doing X-rays and CT scans, people living next to Superfund sites, and any members of the public who one day might find themselves exposed to a radiation release.
Wouldn't you like the chances of exposure to be as little as possible?
The Trump administration already has targeted a range of other rules on toxins and pollutants, including coal power plant emissions and car exhaust, that it sees as costly for businesses.
Globe has been keeping an eye on the environment all week.
Supporters of the EPA’s proposal argue the government’s current model that there is no safe level of radiation — the so-called linear no-threshold model — forces unnecessary spending for handling exposure in accidents, at nuclear plants, in medical centers, and at other sites.
At issue is the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule on transparency in science. EPA spokesman John Konkus said Tuesday, ‘‘The proposed regulation doesn’t talk about radiation or any particular chemicals. And as we indicated in our response, EPA’s policy is to continue to use the linear-no-threshold model for population-level radiation protection purposes which would not, under the proposed regulation that has not been finalized, trigger any change in that policy,’’ but in an April news release announcing the proposed rule the agency quoted Edward Calabrese, a toxicologist at the University of Massachusetts who has said weakening limits on radiation exposure would save billions of dollars and have a positive impact on human health.
Whatever is more important, 'eh?
Radiation is everywhere, from potassium in bananas to the microwaves popping popcorn. Most of it is benign, but what’s of concern is the higher-energy, shorter-wave radiation, like X-rays, that can penetrate and disrupt living cells, sometimes causing cancer.
And now they are going to put 5G up everywhere.
Jan Beyea, a physicist whose work includes research with the National Academies of Science on the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, said the EPA science proposal represents voices ‘‘generally dismissed by the great bulk of scientists.’’
They brought up Fukushima so I'm going to say it: 300 tons of radioactive seawater is either leaking or being released into the Pacific every day, day after day, for more than 7 years now.
And the Globe wonders why whale carcasses are washing up on shore?
The EPA proposal would lead to ‘‘increases in chemical and radiation exposures in the workplace, home, and outdoor environment, including the vicinity of Superfund sites,’’ Beyea wrote. ‘‘The individual risk will likely be low, but not the cumulative social risk,’’ Beyea said.....
--more--"
As for the mercury in the water:
"A polluted creek near MetLife Stadium and the Meadowlands sports complex that has some of the highest recorded mercury levels of any freshwater ecosystem in the country is moving ahead with a $332 million cleanup plan, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday. Officials say more than 100 companies have verbally agreed to help pay for remediating a roughly six-mile stretch of Berry’s Creek, a waterway that originates near New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport and snakes around the western border of the sports complex before it feeds into the Hackensack River. Several companies operated a mercury processing plant from the late-1920s to the mid-1970s."
Only a few drops of coverage before the Globe boils over:
"Kavanaugh’s temperament, credibility emerge as flashpoints in Supreme Court fight" By John Wagner and Mike DeBonis Washington Post October 02, 2018
WASHINGTON — Brett Kavanaugh’s temperament and credibility emerged as flashpoints Tuesday in the battle over his Supreme Court nomination, with Democrats increasingly pointing to his at times testy and emotional performance at last week’s Senate hearing.
After twelve years one the bench when he exhibited nothing of the sort.
Beyond that, they goaded him into it with all the provocations beginning the very first day when the hearings were disrupted by protest, with the low blow after the hearings were complete being the thing that ultimately set him off.
The strategy came as the FBI conducts a limited investigation into allegations of sexual assault by Kavanaugh but with great uncertainty about whether the probe will unearth anything conclusive by the end of the week, when Republicans are pressing for a vote.
During remarks on the Senate floor, minority leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, said last week’s hearing, at which Christine Blasey Ford alleged a drunken sexual assault in the early 1980s, left him and others with great concerns about Kavanaugh’s truthfulness.
What a sanctimonious hypocrite.
During the hearing, Kavanaugh acknowledged sometimes drinking too many beers in high school but said he did not have a problem with alcohol and never forgot his behavior — characterizations that have been questioned in news reports by some former classmates.
Regardless of what he did as a teenager, senators need to look at what Kavanaugh is saying now, Schumer argued.
‘‘You cannot discount what he is saying and professing at age 53 when it flies in the face of being truthful,’’ Schumer said. ‘‘That is the key question here. . . . His credibility is in real doubt — doubt enough for a lot of Americans to say this man should not be on the Supreme Court.’’
Have you checked the credibility of the accusers who offer no evidence, lied under oath, and have shady political connections, Chuck?
Other Democrats — and one key Republican, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona — also raised questions Tuesday about whether Kavanaugh has the right temperament to be on the high court.
Appearing at a forum sponsored by The Atlantic, Flake said he was concerned about some of Kavanaugh’s sharp interactions with Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee last week. While Flake said Kavanaugh deserves some leeway given what he and his family been through, he said, ‘‘We can’t have this on the court.’’
He's a NO, and I don't think that surprises anybody!
He was looking for a way out, and you have to now wonder if the Soros sisters that were allowed to accost him in the elevator were part of his plan.
Democrats offered harsher assessments. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, weighed in, saying at The Atlantic event that Kavanaugh was ‘‘hysterical’’ during the Senate hearing. She argued that yelling and crying by a woman would be viewed far differently.
I'm surprised to see her say that since the word hysterical has been outed as a sexist term that demeans women.
It's like saying your player got raped because of the referees.
‘‘If a woman ever behaved that way — to me it was behavior that was not suitable for a person who would be a judge on any court, much less the Supreme Court of the United States,’’ she said.
She didn't see the front page of today's Globe!
The funny thing is, as a man, I have not been angry about this whole process. I'm disgusted by it, I'm appalled by the conduct of the ma$$ media, and I'm sickened by my hateful, spiteful pre$$, but I'm not angry.
Nevertheless, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, doubled down Tuesday on his vow to hold a vote by the end of the week.
His comments come as Democrats are pressing for a more expansive FBI investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have called for FBI interviews of about two dozen people who might have information relevant to three Kavanaugh accusers, and on Tuesday, Schumer called for a briefing by the FBI to the full Senate before a vote on whether to move Kavanaugh’s nomination forward.
As he left the White House on Tuesday, President Trump continued to voice support for Kavanaugh but told reporters it would ‘‘not be acceptable’’ if the FBI demonstrated that he had lied.
‘‘Hopefully, as Mitch said, they’ll have a vote by the end of the week, and it’ll be a positive vote,’’ Trump said.
I hope not, and don't think it will be.
The reason I say that is because I think that if Kavanaugh is confirmed, the Senate turns blue (the House is already lost; that's why Ryan called it quits). The only way that can be avoided is if some Democrats vote to confirm after some Republicans vote to deny; however, Flake has given all Democrats cover to vote no and I believe they will do so.
What I want is for Kavanaugh to be pulled, Coney Barrett to be nominated in his place, and then, when Ginsburg goes, put up another conservative woman to fill her spot. The court will simply have to operate with eight justices for a few more weeks before she quickly confirmed, and the Republican base should be satisfied as Kavanaugh fades away.
A spokesman for McConnell noted that the agreement with Flake and other swing senators was to have a procedural vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation by Friday, so the majority leader would have to take steps to tee up that vote on Wednesday.
A second Kavanaugh accuser, Debbie Ramirez, met with the FBI for about two hours on Sunday, according to two people familiar with the investigation.
Her legal team provided the FBI with a list of at least 20 people they believe may have relevant information and should be interviewed, the people said.
Those are all the people that Ramirez called and asked if they remembered anything because she didn't.
Ramirez has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her while both were college students.
Kavanaugh’s fate is largely dependent on a small number of Republicans who have said they want to see what a limited FBI investigation yields.....
Looks like Collins is also a NO!
--more--"
The latest accusation against Kavanaugh is that he threw water on a homeless man.
This next piece wasn't in print so I'm seeing it for the first time just as you are, reader:
"Trump taunts Christine Blasey Ford as crowd laughs at rally" by Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker New York Times October 03, 2018
Someone drew a gun, and be careful going up in the helicopter.
SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — President Trump on Tuesday sharply mocked the woman whose allegation of sexual assault has upended his effort to install a second justice on the Supreme Court, escalating a battle that has already polarized Washington and the country.
At a campaign rally, Trump went further than ever before in directly assailing Christine Blasey Ford, the university professor who accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh, his nominee, of pinning her to a bed and trying to take her clothes off at a high school party in the early 1980s.
Playing to the crowd of thousands gathered to cheer him on, the president pretended to be Blasey testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday. “Thirty-six years ago this happened. I had one beer, right? I had one beer,” said Trump, channeling his version of Blasey. His voice dripping with derision, he then imitated her being questioned at the hearing, followed by her responses about what she could not recall about the alleged attack.
If he had done it on Saturday Night live it would have been okay.
“How did you get home? I don’t remember. How’d you get there? I don’t remember. Where is the place? I don’t remember. How many years ago was it? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. What neighborhood was it in? I don’t know. Where’s the house? I don’t know. Upstairs, downstairs, where was it? I don’t know,” Trump said, as the crowd applauded. “I don’t know — but I had one beer. That’s the only thing I remember.”
Then, continuing in his own voice, he said: “And a man’s life is in tatters. A man’s life is shattered. His wife is shattered.” Referring to those who have championed Blasey’s case, he added: “They destroy people. They want to destroy people. These are really evil people.”
They all seem to have Clinton, Democrat, or Deep State connections, yeah.
Trump’s taunts could inflame a struggle over power and sex that has consumed the capital in recent weeks and risked alienating two of the undecided moderate Republicans whose votes will decide the fate of his nomination, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
So Murk will also be a NO!
The president’s advisers and his Republican allies in the Senate have implored him to restrain himself in the fight to salvage Kavanaugh’s nomination, and for the most part, he has kept to defending the nominee while avoiding comment on Blasey. On several occasions, he broke from script and directly questioned her account as unbelievable, drawing a rebuke from Collins, who called his comment “appalling,” but this was the first time he mocked Blasey in this way.
He did say her testimony was "credible."
Trump’s impression of Blasey, 51, a research psychologist at Stanford University and a psychology professor at Palo Alto University who also goes by her married name, Ford, drew a sharp retort from Michael Bromwich, one of her lawyers.
“A vicious, vile and soulless attack on Dr. Christine Blasey Ford,” he wrote on Twitter. “Is it any wonder that she was terrified to come forward, and that other sexual assault survivors are as well? She is a remarkable profile in courage. He is a profile in cowardice.”
The ridicule of Blasey cut against the grain of the Republican strategy until that point of trying to gingerly question her account without seeming to attack her. Senate Republicans have emphasized their respect for Blasey and have praised her bravery in coming forward even as they accepted Kavanaugh’s adamant denials. The president himself said after the hearing last week that Blasey was “a very credible witness” and “a very fine woman” whose testimony was “very compelling.”
Earlier Tuesday, the president’s advisers were privately marveling at how measured — for him — he had been throughout the controversy around Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, but his patience seemed to run out Tuesday night, as Trump seemed eager to charge up his supporters against Blasey.
Trump’s portrait of Blasey was met with cheers and laughter by the crowd of several thousand supporters at the Landers Center in Southaven, and it mirrored the increasingly sharp attacks against her by conservative news outlets, which in recent days have questioned her credibility about what were deemed inconsistencies in her testimony.
Right, evidence and corroboration mean nothing.
During the rally, Trump went after the news media and opposition, including Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont — the most senior Democrat in the Senate and a member of the Judiciary Committee that questioned Blasey and Kavanaugh — by implying that the senator abuses alcohol. The president invited the crowd to research Leahy online, saying, “Look up Patrick Leahy slash drink.”
Oh, that is who he meant, and yeah, that's out there.
Trump also suggested that people needed to be worried about allegations of sexual impropriety about their sons and husbands, once again wading into the charged #MeToo debate over gender and power in the United States on the side of men who are accused, while offering no words of sympathy for victims of sexual abuse.
Well, the media has sort of backed us all into the corner on this one, and we all close ranks like Jews.
He repeated a theme he raised earlier in the day speaking with reporters at the White House before he left on his trip to Philadelphia and Mississippi. Trump told the reporters that this is a “very scary time for young men in America” because the recent wave of sexual misconduct allegations against powerful figures has eroded traditional due process rights and the presumption of innocence.
“It’s a tough thing going on,” he said. “You can be an exemplary person for 35 years, and then somebody comes and they say you did this or that, and they give three witnesses, and the three witnesses at this point do not corroborate what you were saying, that’s a very scary situation where you’re guilty until proven innocent.”
Have you seen the pyre they are building?
Trump flew to Philadelphia to address the convention of the National Electrical Contractors Association. The president was welcomed warmly by the association leadership and drew applause from the audience. David Long, the association president, gave him a hard-hat with the presidential seal on it. “You could use this in Washington from time to time,” Long said, but at least some expressed concern about inviting the president given his embrace of Kavanaugh. “We don’t think that Trump’s racism and misogyny should have been honored or condoned by his presence at our national convention,” said Jonathan Ostrow, president of a Worcester-based electricial company.
The president discussed the situation Tuesday when asked about his eldest son Donald Trump Jr., who recently said he was more worried about his sons than his daughters because “the other side weaponizes” claims of sexual misbehavior from decades earlier.
Asked if he had a message to men, the president said: “Well, I say that it’s a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of. This is a very, very — this is a very difficult time.”
Trump, who himself has been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women and who was once caught on tape boasting that he could kiss women and grab them by their genitals because “when you’re a star, they let you do it,” said the issue went beyond Kavanaugh’s case.
“Somebody could accuse you of something, and you’re automatically guilty,” he said. “But in this realm, you are truly guilty until proven innocent. That’s one of the very, very bad things that’s taking place right now.”
Asked if he had a message for young women, he said, “Women are doing great.”
--more--"
Related:
"The Trump administration will no longer issue family visas to same-sex domestic partners of foreign diplomats or employees of international organizations who work in the United States, State Department officials said Tuesday. The shift drew sharp criticism from gay rights advocates, including those who work for the United Nations and could be affected. It also applies to people working in the United States for the World Bank, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and other groups. The visas are issued to family members and dependents of diplomats and employees of international organizations, and had been given to domestic same-sex partners and formally married couples during the Obama administration. Critics called the new policy discriminatory, warning many foreigners would not come to the United States to work if their partners were unable to obtain a diplomatic visa....."
Just protecting American jobs.
Besides, you never know who they are bringing in:
"MS-13 member who plunged knife into 15-year-old’s heart gets 35 years in prison" By Travis Andersen Globe Staff October 02, 2018
A member of the feared MS-13 street gang received a 36-year sentence Monday for his role in the 2015 murder of a 15-year-old boy in East Boston, an attack that prosecutors described as “bloodthirsty and cold-hearted.”
Carlos Melara, 21, a Salvadoran national who goes by the nicknames “Chuchito” and “Criminal,” learned his fate during a sentencing hearing in US District Court in Boston, authorities said. He had pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy in March.
David J. Grimaldi, a lawyer for Melara, requested in a recent court filing that his client, the youngest of nine children, be sentenced to 30 years.
His lawyer requested that?
Melara, Grimaldi wrote, comes from a “chronically poor” region of El Salvador and was previously diagnosed with tuberculosis. His blind sister died when he was a boy.
He traveled alone to Chelsea in 2013 to join his older brother’s family, enrolled in Chelsea High School, and began working restaurant, construction, and cleaning jobs, Grimaldi wrote. But Melara also made “extremely poor” decisions while seeking out people who would accept him, according to the filing.
Looks like he has had a tough live and isn't responsible -- about as far from Judge Kavanaugh as you can get.
Melara, Grimaldi wrote, “profoundly regrets that his son . . . born after his arrest and now two years old, will grow up with his father in prison, though he realizes why that must be the case. . . . While his facility for reflection is still developing, Mr. Melara’s emerging insight and overall disposition promise growth and fuller realization.”
Grimaldi conceded that Melara deserves “significant punishment” and will be deported when he completes his sentence.....
--more--"
That article was buried on page B5 -- and we will never know how Kavanaugh would have ruled on the appeal.
Thus, after a summer of setbacks, lies, and damned lies in a ‘Star Chamber’ where the system is ‘rigged,’ we say goodbye to the child murderer:
JetBlue to shift more flights to Boston
Will they have the capacity to handle the extra flights?
Boston-bound flight diverted to Kansas City due to unruly passenger
What has Baker's slob-son done now?
Complemented her looks as he toyed and teased her?
(flip)
[PAGE A3 FULL PAGE TOTAL WINE AD]
Just felt like I needed to draw that part of the print to your attention.
The Globe then goes on to defend it's own drinking while ignoring the crime that comes with it.
(flip)
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Trump participated in ‘dubious’ tax schemes in the 1990s, explosive NYT report says" by David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner New York Times October 02, 2018
That's odd.
My print version carried the byline of Farenthold (no relation?) of the Washington ComPost, but that link is broken(?).
NEW YORK — President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help, but The Times’ investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.
So he inherited money and tried to pay as little tax as possible like thousands of other $cum in his cla$$. What's your point?
Much of this money came to Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.
So when is the Times going to investigate the corruption and malfeasance at the Clinton Foundation? That next in the hopper?
These maneuvers met with little resistance from the IRS, The Times found. The president’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances.
They are really hobbled over there.
The president declined repeated requests over several weeks to comment for this article, but a lawyer for Trump, Charles J. Harder, provided a written statement on Monday, one day after The Times sent a detailed description of its findings. “The New York Times’ allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory,” Harder said. “There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which The Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate.”
That is not only nothing new from the Times these days, but standard operating procedure.
Do they really think this is going to hurt Trump, or is it just to provide the fuel for a Democrat investigation come next year?
Harder sought to distance Trump from the tax strategies used by his family, saying the president had delegated those tasks to relatives and tax professionals. “President Trump had virtually no involvement whatsoever with these matters,” he said. “The affairs were handled by other Trump family members who were not experts themselves and therefore relied entirely upon the aforementioned licensed professionals to ensure full compliance with the law.”
I believe him. It was not only they way such matters should be handled, but it provides Trump with legitimate deniability. He was probably too busy being a celebrity to worry about tax matters.
The president’s brother, Robert Trump, issued a statement on behalf of the Trump family:
“Our dear father, Fred C. Trump, passed away in June 1999. Our beloved mother, Mary Anne Trump, passed away in August 2000. All appropriate gift and estate tax returns were filed, and the required taxes were paid. Our father’s estate was closed in 2001 by both the Internal Revenue Service and the New York state tax authorities, and our mother’s estate was closed in 2004. Our family has no other comment on these matters that happened some 20 years ago, and would appreciate your respecting the privacy of our deceased parents, may God rest their souls.”
Yeah, think of that for a minute.
The New York Times is DIGGING UP HIS PARENTS GRAVE to GET DIRT ON HIM!
It's like I said. You don't think the pre$$ can go any lower, and yet there they are, surprising me every day!
The Times’ findings raise new questions about Donald Trump’s refusal to release his income tax returns, breaking with decades of practice by past presidents. According to tax experts, it is unlikely that Trump would be vulnerable to criminal prosecution for helping his parents evade taxes because the acts happened too long ago and are past the statute of limitations. There is no time limit, however, on civil fines for tax fraud.
Well, Trump has broken decades of practices by past presidents, thank God.
The findings are based on interviews with Fred Trump’s former employees and advisers, and more than 100,000 pages of documents describing the inner workings and immense profitability of his empire. They include documents culled from public sources — mortgages and deeds, probate records, financial disclosure reports, regulatory records and civil court files.
Why didn't the Times do this years ago then?
Why did they sit on it like they did Weinstein?
The investigation also draws on tens of thousands of pages of confidential records — bank statements, financial audits, accounting ledgers, cash disbursement reports, invoices, and canceled checks. Most notably, the documents include more than 200 tax returns from Fred Trump, his companies, and various Trump partnerships and trusts. While the records do not include the president’s personal tax returns and reveal little about his recent business dealings at home and abroad, dozens of corporate, partnership, and trust tax returns offer the first public accounting of the income he received for decades from various family enterprises.
What emerges from this body of evidence is a financial biography of the 45th president fundamentally at odds with the story Trump has sold in his books, his TV shows, and his political life. In Trump’s version of how he got rich, he was the master dealmaker who broke free of his father’s “tiny” outer-borough operation and parlayed a single $1 million loan from his father (“I had to pay him back with interest!”) into a $10 billion empire that would slap the Trump name on hotels, high-rises, casinos, airlines, and golf courses the world over. In Trump’s version, it was always his guts and gumption that overcame setbacks. Fred Trump was simply a cheerleader.
They act like Trump is the first richer to ever embellish his story or promote such a narrative when our propagandized history is full of such individual tales go heroi$m.
“I built what I built myself,” Donald Trump has said, a narrative that was long amplified by often-credulous coverage from news organizations, including The Times.
I'm shocked, no really, I am, that the Times would mention their complicity in building up his lies before trying to tear him down.
Was a lot faster than their "apology" for front-paging and blaring with a bullhorn Bush's war lies.
Certainly a handful of journalists and biographers, notably Wayne Barrett, Gwenda Blair, David Cay Johnston, and Timothy L. O’Brien, have challenged this story, especially the claim of being worth $10 billion. They described how Trump piggybacked off his father’s banking connections to gain a foothold in Manhattan real estate. They poked holes in his go-to talking point about the $1 million loan, citing evidence that he actually got $14 million. They told how Fred Trump once helped his son make a bond payment on an Atlantic City casino by buying $3.5 million in casino chips, but The Times’ investigation of the Trump family’s finances is unprecedented in scope and precision, offering the first comprehensive look at the inherited fortune and tax dodges that guaranteed Donald Trump a gilded life. The reporting makes clear that in every era of Trump’s life, his finances were deeply intertwined with, and dependent on, his father’s wealth.
No wonder he likes Kavanaugh, huh?
By age 3, Trump was earning $200,000 a year in today’s dollars from his father’s empire. He was a millionaire by age 8. By the time he was 17, his father had given him part ownership of a 52-unit apartment building. Soon after Trump graduated from college, he was receiving the equivalent of $1 million a year from his father. The money increased with the years, to more than $5 million annually in his 40s and 50s.
I wish my deadbeat father had set me up instead of abandoning us all.
Fred Trump’s real estate empire was not just scores of apartment buildings. It was also a mountain of cash, tens of millions of dollars in profits building up inside his businesses, banking records show. In one six-year span, from 1988 through 1993, Fred Trump reported $109.7 million in total income, now equivalent to $210.7 million. It was not unusual for tens of millions in Treasury bills and certificates of deposit to flow through his personal bank accounts each month.
So what are they trying to say, he was a $lum lord?
Fred Trump was relentless and creative in finding ways to channel this wealth to his children. He made Donald Trump not just his salaried employee but also his property manager, landlord, banker, and consultant. He gave him loan after loan, many never repaid. He provided money for his car, money for his employees, money to buy stocks, money for his first Manhattan offices, and money to renovate those offices. He gave him three trust funds. He gave him shares in multiple partnerships. He gave him $10,000 Christmas checks. He gave him laundry revenue from his buildings.
Hone$tly, I'm not seeing anything illegal in that paragraph!
WTF, NYT?!!??!!
Much of his giving was structured to sidestep gift and inheritance taxes using methods tax experts described to The Times as improper or possibly illegal. Although Fred Trump became wealthy with help from federal housing subsidies, he insisted that it was manifestly unfair for the government to tax his fortune as it passed to his children. When he was in his 80s and beginning to slide into dementia, evading gift and estate taxes became a family affair, with Donald Trump playing a crucial role, interviews and newly obtained documents show.
They all those tax lawyers they hired are in trouble.
The line between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion is often murky, and it is constantly being stretched by inventive tax lawyers. There is no shortage of clever tax avoidance tricks that have been blessed by either the courts or the IRS itself. The richest Americans rarely if ever pay anything close to full freight, but tax experts briefed on The Times’ findings said the Trumps appeared to have done more than exploit legal loopholes. They said the conduct described here represented a pattern of deception and obfuscation, particularly about the value of Fred Trump’s real estate, that repeatedly prevented the IRS from taxing large transfers of wealth to his children.
Well, as the Globe said, “if a witness is shown knowingly to have testified falsely about any material matter, you have a right to distrust such witness’ other testimony and you may reject all the testimony of that witness,” and that certainly must hold true for the pre$$.
“The theme I see here through all of this is valuations: They play around with valuations in extreme ways,” said Lee-Ford Tritt, a University of Florida law professor and a leading expert in gift and estate tax law. “There are dramatic fluctuations depending on their purpose.”
Remember all the accounting firms that Wall Street banks and corporations paid off to valuate the mortgage-backed securities and collateralized-debt obligations that led to banker riches and the 2008 meltdown?
Yeah, didn't think so.
The manipulation of values to evade taxes was central to one of the most important financial events in Donald Trump’s life. In an episode never before revealed, Trump and his siblings gained ownership of most of their father’s empire on Nov. 22, 1997, a year and a half before Fred Trump’s death. Critical to the complex transaction was the value put on the real estate. The lower its value, the lower the gift taxes. The Trumps dodged hundreds of millions in gift taxes by submitting tax returns that grossly undervalued the properties, claiming they were worth just $41.4 million.
The same set of buildings would be sold off during the next decade for more than 16 times that amount.
The most overt fraud was All County Building Supply & Maintenance, a company formed by the Trump family in 1992. All County’s ostensible purpose was to be the purchasing agent for Fred Trump’s buildings, buying everything from boilers to cleaning supplies. It did no such thing, records and interviews show. Instead All County siphoned millions of dollars from Fred Trump’s empire by simply marking up purchases already made by his employees. Those millions, effectively untaxed gifts, then flowed to All County’s owners — Donald Trump, his siblings, and a cousin. Fred Trump then used the padded All County receipts to justify bigger rent increases for thousands of tenants.
After this article was published on Tuesday, a spokesman for the New York state Department of Taxation and Finance said the agency was “reviewing the allegations” and “vigorously pursuing all appropriate areas of investigation.”
All told, The Times documented 295 streams of revenue that Fred Trump created over five decades to enrich his son. In most cases his four other children benefited equally, but over time, as Donald Trump careened from one financial disaster to the next, his father found ways to give him substantially more money, records show. Even so, in 1990, according to previously secret depositions, Trump tried to have his father’s will rewritten in a way that Fred Trump, alarmed and angered, feared could result in his empire being used to bail out his son’s failing businesses.
Who leaked those to the times, and can you imagine it?
How awful.
A father bailing out his son?
Why does W. Bush come to mind?
Of course, the story of how Donald Trump got rich cannot be reduced to handouts from his father. Before he became president, his singular achievement was building the brand of Donald Trump, Self-Made Billionaire, a brand so potent it generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue through TV shows, books and licensing deals.
Constructing that image required more than Fred Trump’s money. Just as important were his son’s preternatural marketing skills and always-be-closing competitive hustle. While Fred Trump helped finance the accouterments of wealth, Donald Trump, master self-promoter, spun them into a seductive narrative. Fred Trump’s money, for example, helped build Trump Tower, the talisman of privilege that established his son as a major player in New York, but Donald Trump recognized and exploited the iconic power of Trump Tower as a primary stage for both “The Apprentice” and his presidential campaign.
That is how he won the presidency against his cold and callous opponent.
The biggest payday he ever got from his father came long after Fred Trump’s death. It happened quietly, without the usual Trumpian news conference, on May 4, 2004, when Trump and his siblings sold off the empire their father had spent 70 years assembling with the dream that it would never leave his family.
Donald Trump’s cut: $177.3 million, or $236.2 million in today’s dollars.
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{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Speaking of getting all steamed up:
Gas restoration in Merrimack Valley ramps up this week
I was told that would be risky.
In Lawrence, volunteers celebrate the return of hot meals
Lawrence gets by with a lot of help from friends
Yeah, the mayor is going to get you some housing.
They will send out an emergency alert over the Internet when they find you a place, but it could still be weeks away (or you may want no part of it, your choice).
Boston now has a licensed superintendent
So how are those school buses running?
Can't even find them on the map, huh?
This was the last time I saw one.
Wellforce CEO Normand Deschene to retire
He's going to take a seat on the Merck board.
Synlogic has a new leader
And she is a WOMAN!
"Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Fidelity Investments are among more than a dozen financial services firms joining an initiative to increase diversity across the asset management world. Called “The Diversity Project,” the push is sponsored by NICSA, a nonprofit trade association for the industry. Part of the goal is to ensure professionals in the investment business are as diverse as the clients and communities they serve. Many Wall Street leaders have been pledging publicly for years to increase the diversity of their workforces, employing more women, minorities, and other traditionally underrepresented groups."
Going to get a $eat in the front, ladies.
And a raise, too:
Amazon to raise minimum hourly wage to $15 for all US workers
As they transition to AI and "the wage increase comes as Amazon’s fortunes, as well as those of its chief executive, Jeff Bezos, have ballooned. Amazon’s market capitalization passed $1 trillion last month, though it has since fallen slightly. And last year Bezos became the richest man in the world, with a net worth of $165 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index."
He also owns the WaComPo.
Retail stocks slip as Amazon raises wages
But the Dow set another record because of the strong dollar.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
US and Chinese warships narrowly avoid colliding in disputed waters
Alibaba’s Jack Ma says the war could last 20 years.
Did Trump’s ambassador to NATO threaten Russia with preemptive strikes?
I sincerely hope she has been recalled.
cs
Melania Trump opened her first big solo international trip as U.S. first lady on Tuesday with a wave, a smile and a baby in her arms, aiming to promote child welfare during a five-day tour of Africa (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster).
The first lady is in wrong part of world.
"Desperation grows as death toll soars from Indonesia quake" Associated Press October 03, 2018
PALU, Indonesia — Trucks carrying food for desperate survivors of the earthquake on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island rolled in with a police escort Tuesday to guard against looters, while the death toll from the disaster soared past 1,200.
Four days after the magnitude 7.5 earthquake and tsunami struck, supplies of food, water, fuel, and medicine had yet to reach the hardest-hit areas outside Palu, the largest city that was heavily damaged. Many roads are blocked and communications lines are down.
‘‘We feel like we are stepchildren here because all the help is going to Palu,’’ said Mohamad Taufik, 38, from the town of Donggala, where five of his relatives are still missing. ‘‘There are many young children here who are hungry and sick, but there is no milk or medicine.’’
Like so many places in this world (Yemen comes to mind).
The death toll reached 1,234, national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in Jakarta, the capital. Hundreds of other people were injured, and scores of uncounted bodies could still be buried in collapsed buildings in Sigi and Balaroa under quicksand-like mud caused by Friday’s quake.
Despite the photos and videos, the scale of this thing is unimaginable to me.
The UN humanitarian office reported that ‘‘needs are vast,’’ with people urgently requiring shelter, clean water, food, fuel, and emergency medical care.
Water is the main issue because most of the supply infrastructure has been damaged, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said at UN headquarters in New York.
More than 25 countries offered assistance after Indonesian President Joko Widodo appealed for international help. Little of that, however, has reached the disaster zone, and increasingly desperate residents grabbed food and fuel from damaged stores and begged for help.
Haq said the government is coordinating emergency efforts, and UN and relief agencies are on the ground or enroute. He said the agencies are working closely with the government to provide technical support.
An aircraft carrying 3,170 gallons of fuel had arrived. and trucks with food were on the way with police escorts. Many gas stations were inoperable either because of quake damage or from people stealing fuel, Nugroho said.
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Related: Indonesian Emergency
Also see:
North Korea estimated to have 20-60 nuclear weapons
I don't think they caused the earthquake.
Italy digs in spending, jolting markets and worrying EU
Once again, just as in World War II, Germany will have to come in and bail them out again:
Germany agrees to plan to cut diesel pollution
Either that, or they will just lie about it again.
Nobel Prize in physics awarded to scientists who put light to work
She is a woman, but considering the day and age we are in, they should do away with the Nobel prizes.
Yes, these are ‘‘extraordinary times.’’
