The left really beclowned themselves last night. Rachel Maddow and MSDNC hyped that they had Trump’s tax returns. The Democrat Left Base (imagine mindless zonbies addicted to crystal meth) were so excited because they thought “OMG! When people see his taxes, he’ll be forced to resign and then Hillary will be president! (It’s in the Constitution, according to Sally Kohn.) They were so excited. The left, at the bottom of everything else, is about getting people. It’s about getting revenge, about punishing people you don’t like, it’s about bringing people down. It’s what they do.
So, they got out their Lubriderm and cucumbers and waited for the Big Reveal. Which turned out to be… an enormous fizzle. The big takeaway being that Trump pays a higher tax rate than most left-wing icons.
And another result of this is that people will care even less about the next “We got Trump this time” scoop the MFM shoves out there.
Was this really worth committing a felony?
It shall be unlawful for any person to whom any return or return information (as defined in section 6103(b)) is disclosed in a manner unauthorized by this title thereafter willfully to print or publish in any manner not provided by law any such return or return information. Any violation of this paragraph shall be a felony punishable by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.- 26 U.S. Code § 7213
Maybe the left would learn from this that their obsession with tearing down people is ultimately ungratifying, but I doubt it.
gee I wish I was a rhodes scholar.
Will the DOJ press charges?
I had thought maybe Trump emailed his tax return to Hillary Clinton and it got deleted.
Some of the liberal dumb@asses commenting wondered how Trump’s 1040 could only be 2 pages.
I’m not taking a stand until I see the independent investigational film by the Michael Brown “Gentle Giant” guy. (Or, until Nancy Pelosi explains it to me.)
5.In a just and sane world, this would be the end of Rachel Maddow’s career, and she and her staff would end up heavily fined with the person who leaked these records in jail. However, we are living in crazy times where felons on the left not only go unpunished but get elevated in the Democrat party. Rachel is an icon in the Democrat party, so they will circle the wagons and defend her to the hilt. The narrative was already building yesterday that A. This proves Trump lied about being a billionaire (idiots!) and B. Someone in Trump’s circle clandestinely gave these to poor, unsuspecting Rachel on orders of Trump, just so he could make her look bad because Trump is Hitler! He was deflecting from the criticism he was getting over taking our precious Obamacare away AND his idiotic statements about President Boyfriend spying on him. C. We’ll all just pretend this unfortunate incident never happened. We will delete all references of it from polite conversation and from the internet…
#6, I agree.
I just don’t see the Left dumping Maddow, as Drudge is currently implying with his aggregation. All they have are their Democrat Media Complex talking heads since they haven’t chosen a political leader to be their mouthpiece.
There’s a substantial number of non-voting, youngish big mouthed Bernie “the resistance” peeps on the Left who fawn all over her expired “last year’s” anti-Trump/anti-GOP rhetoric. They think she’s great & when something like all this folderol happens they put their hands up to their ears & make humming sounds.
Hi Heliotrope,
“In a just and sane world, this would be the end of Rachel Maddow’s career, and she and her staff would end up heavily fined with the person who leaked these records in jail.”
Fair point. Is her disclosure protected under the 1st Amendment as “political speech”? After all, nothing happened to the NY Times for doing the same thing as well, right? So, what is going on with that? Also, if as Joe Scarborough implies, the President leaked it himself (it is quite flattering after all), does that mean he should go to gaol as well? 🙂
There are people who are saying that Maddow and her provider are in the clear because of the two hallmarks of Freedom of the Press:
1) Was it factual?
2) Was it newsworthy?
Well, if that is the standard, then why is there ANY discussion about Snowden or Assange?
Alphonse Allais (1854-1905) predicted the 20th and 21st century’s left:
@10:
Proof.
Just ask 1998-2017 Venezuela.
Q.E.D.
Exactly right.
Hence, my previous 2 comments, on the tangent.
Past teenage, at the most, leftism is a mental disorder.
I thought the tax bracket for someone who made $150M was supposed to be closer to 40%. But, I’m not really up-to-date on tax codes.
@13:
well, it’s *after* all the deductions he himself bragged about.
Still, funny how the “failed businessman” (some claimed he is) found his way to have a $38,000,000 non deductible remaining.
I’d love to fail like that, here.
Side note:
At a five figure a year times 3 I pay in taxes, plus mandatorily-affordable healthcare, which leaves me with a roughly 60% of gross income disposable on a monthly average basis, I’m guessing I’m the total winner after 8 years of Obamanation pride, while he is the total loser, granted.
Okay, I’m winning a bit compared to my past situation in … cough… cough… France… alright, but that still leaves a kinda bad taste in my north mouth… to speak politely.
Think as an immigrant I should start burning cars after throwing tantrums?
That might work,I’ve heard from Sweden.
/rant
One last note, V the K:
awesome post title, btw.
As in, awesomely on point.
I’d have “Please” put in bold, italic, and blinking ! 🙂
Maybe the left is going to become literally funny for good, after all !
Seems like Trump needs to talk to Warren Buffet to see how Warren pays a rate lower than his secretary.
@7:
Indeed. Warren Buffet, one billionaire (among so many others) who makes Trump look good, even when you’re not a big fan of the Donald.
Unlike dumb leftists, I have my own good reasons to dislike the Hypocrite Buffet, while I couldn’t care that he is otherwise (a billionaire): lip service to the usefulness / benevolence of the Federal Reserve ripping off americans since 1913, claimed to hate gold and yet made a fortune by trading its silver cousin (a bit like a wino saying he cannot drink reds unless they are Beaujolais), guilty billionaire quotes at will, etc, etc.
Maybe only the lunatic eugenist Bill Gates can surpass the animal, who, has you point out, has this instinctive leftist talent to lead the demagoguery pack by counter-exemplary acts vs what he profess before the plebe.
(sorry for the grammar typos)
(@18 was @17)
Yes, and yes. All the commentary I’ve seen from People Who Should Know state that as long as the information truly “came over the transom”, First Amendment protections apply. Of course the responsibility is on the publisher of such information to insure that they are not subjecting themselves to the possibility of libel in making that information public, but in each instance so far of nefarious tax record publishing, the alleged victim has confirmed that the information is essentially accurate. Which leads to the possibility, as previously mentioned, that the subject of the information was actually the source of last night’s non-bombshell.
The Oracle of Omaha’s woe-is-my-secretary shtick is just that. Despite the whining about paying too little in “shared responsibility” payments to the government, his companies are ruthless about insuring that they pay as little tax as possible. His company’s energy subsidiary is my electric service provider and when the last employee contract came up for renewal a few years ago, the union wasn’t shy about digging in to uncover all sorts of little tidbits about his business practices, many of which would make the historic robber barons proud. All the nickle-and-diming to ensure that his companies pay as little as possible and do as little as possible for the ‘public good’. And still as an employer he was trying to chisel as many benefits away from the workers as possible. Now if you were truly a good Democrat and a responsible member of society, wouldn’t you want to share the wealth with the Little People whenever you could?
But by whining about your personal tax rate and shaming your peers into donating at least half of their assets to charity, you can at least divert attention away from your less charitable actions which drain wealth from others. It’s a classic slight-of-hand trick extrapolated to the business world.
Wait. You’re trying to use sound logic, now.
Internal Server Error.
D)oes N)ot C)ompute.
On the left, the use of logic is strictly uninteresting, irrelevant, uncalled for, verboten.
For, unprocessable.
Otherwise, we would know by now:
Dear Pot,
http://i.imgur.com/ZRb3yWv.jpg
I am glad to introduce you to Kettle,
http://i.imgur.com/KK8nbku.jpg
Wishing you the best (cognitive dissonance)
@13. The top tax bracket in 2005 was 35% for taxable income above $300,000.
Which would make your tax percentage lower than that. 25% after all of his legal deductions (which probably included millions in charitable contributions) is pretty darn high.
Craig @ 25 > Ah, I see. Thanks for explaining.
@21
Thank you, RSG