Random Politics & Religion #11

Apparently a year of Trumps tax returns were leaked.

He claimed a $916,000,000 loss in 1995. So, if he hasn't been playing taxes for a good while, ~18 years of them are actually legal.

But it wasn't because he's smart, like he claims.

Ok now show us your tax returns we are dying to see them !

Yeah, because the best way to determine how good a businessman is is to show a tax return that is 21 years old.

He's already a well documented failure. But I know you think one success, which was passed down from his father, makes up for every other failure.

They've been asking for a full disclosure, which everyone since '72 has complied with. The only one we've seen isn't looking good for him. Maybe he can set the record straight and he's been reeling in hundreds of millions in earnings every other year.

He's already a well documented failure. But I know you think one success, which was passed down from his father, makes up for every other failure.

They've been asking for a full disclosure, which everyone since '72 has complied with. The only one we've seen isn't looking good for him. Maybe he can set the record straight and he's been reeling in hundreds of millions in earnings every other year.

Donald Trump's Many Business Failures, Explained
Newsweek

Donald Trump Is A Mediocre Businessman, And His Record Proves It.
Independent Journal Review

Top 10 Donald Trump Failures
Time


Donald Trump's 13 Biggest Business Failures
Rolling Stone


BUSINESS THE TRUMP WAY
He’s a billionaire (though maybe not as rich as he says). He claims he hates debt (but his casino companies went bust ­because of it). He craves press ­attention (but sues at the drop of a hat). What does Trump’s record tell us about how he’ll lead?
Fortune

The irony of internet trolls calling a billionaire a failure.

I'm trying to understand the liberal view here. Donald Trump is both a billionaire and a failure, (?) the Clintons were flat broke when they got out of the White House (?), and Romney was TOO successful?

Beyond her head for business and viability, we also can't discount that when Bill left office our country actually had, for the first in a long time, a budget surplus. A surplus later squandered by George W. Bush.

The level of educational attainment varies widely among battleground states and that could play a key role in how they break between Clinton and Trump.

The direction battleground states swing in the presidential election is likely to be heavily influenced by their level of educational attainment, a measure that's shaping up to be one of the top demographic fault lines in this campaign.

College-educated voters made up almost half the 2012 electorate nationally, but some states are more educated than others. They range from Massachusetts, where nearly 41.5 percent of those 25 years or older have a college degree, to West Virginia, where 19.6 percent do.

Some of the states viewed as key battlegrounds have relatively higher levels of schooling and could well prove to be out of Donald Trump's reach. Surveys have shown that Hillary Clinton's candidacy is favored by the more educated voters, while Trump is more popular among those who don't have college degrees.

John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard University Institute of Politics, said the axiom of "demographics is destiny" that was often applied to the 2008 presidential campaign is also potentially playing out in this one.

"The factors important in determining the electoral destiny this time around are closely related to class and education," he said. "When looking at which states will break from their traditional patterns, understanding the percentage of voters who are college and non-college-educated whites is critical."

Colorado is a textbook example. The state ranks third in the nation for share of those 25 and older with a college degree. At 39.2 percent, it's well above the national average of 30.6 percent.

Clinton has held a consistent lead in the rapidly growing western state most of the summer and early fall, so much so that her campaign stopped advertising there in late July.

The Colorado race appears to have tightened in recent weeks, as it has nationally and in other key states. A CNN/ORC poll taken Sept. 20-25 showed Trump leading Clinton by 1 percentage point among likely voters in a four-way race that includes third party candidates.

Clinton's strong polling position in Virginia, where she hasn't advertised since early August, also correlates with educational attainment. That state ranks seventh nationally for share of those 25 and older with a college degree.

New Hampshire, which ranks ninth, has also been a relatively strong polling state for Clinton. But it's also a heavily white state packed with younger voters, both demographics groups where she has struggled to find support.

The two battlegrounds where Trump holds polling advantages, Iowa and Ohio, are tied at No. 36 in the college degree rankings. Both states voted for President Barack Obama in 2012, although Clinton has struggled to gain ground in them.

One other battleground state with a low proportion of college graduates is Nevada. Most of the recent polling there has shown Trump in the lead, although a Suffolk University poll of the state released on Friday showed Clinton leading by six percentage points when third-party candidates are included.

While there's no single demographic variable that can predict how a battleground state will vote in the presidential election, educational attainment and race are shaping up as two of the biggest differences in polling support for Trump and Clinton.

The most recent Bloomberg Politics national poll taken late last month showed Clinton winning the college-educated segment by 15 percentage points in a two-way race, 54 percent to 39 percent. Trump’s edge among those without a college education was 8 points, 50 percent to 42 percent.

Trump’s lead was almost 3-to-1 among white men with less than a college degree, 69 percent to 25 percent. Clinton’s advantage with white college-educated women was 55 percent to 37 percent.
That’s vastly different from what was recorded in the 2012 presidential election, when exit polling showed 47 percent of voters were college graduates. In that contest, Obama only narrowly beat Republican challenger Mitt Romney among college graduates, 50 percent to 48 percent.

"It seems quite likely Trump will do better among white, non-college grads than his predecessor, but the question is how much better," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll. "A state that has disproportionately more college graduates appears more likely to vote for Secretary Clinton than Mr. Trump."

A Quinnipiac University national poll released Sept. 26 found Clinton leading Trump among college educated voters, 49 percent to 36 percent. Trump led among those without college degrees, 49 percent to 39 percent.

The share of the college-educated vote received by the Republican nominee and the Democratic nominee also tended to be relatively close in the two most recent elections before 2012.

Obama in 2008 won among both those who did and did not graduate college by almost identical margins over Senator John McCain of Arizona (53 percent to 45 percent, and 53 percent to 46 percent).

President George W. Bush beat then-Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts in 2004 among those with no college degree, 53 percent to 47 percent. Among those with college degrees, the two men tied at 49 percent.

Della Volpe, the Harvard pollster, said his study of millennial voters has shown "educational attainment is a key predictor of attitudes about candidates" and views about the nation.

Young Americans without a college degree are far more likely to believe the American dream is dead, he said, compared to those with a degree or enrolled in college.

"There's no bigger predictor on whether a young voter believes in the American dream than whether or not they have a college degree," he said. "Variables such as race, gender and age are far less important than educational attainment."

The punches from Mark Cuban keep on coming.

On Sunday, the Dallas Mavericks owner tweeted a link to a column he wrote in 2011 titled "Get rich, pay taxes: It's a patriotic duty" -- a dig aimed at Donald Trump following revelations that a $916 million loss in 1995 may have allowed him to legally dodge federal income taxes for nearly two decades.

Cuban's column was originally posted on his blog and then published in The Guardian in September 2011. He wrote that while some people find it "distasteful" to pay taxes, he finds it patriotic.

"So be patriotic," he wrote. "Go out there and get rich. Get so obnoxiously rich that when that tax bill comes, your first thought will be to choke on how big a check you have to write. Your second thought will be 'what a great problem to have,' and your third should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you."

Breaking with political tradition in presidential campaigns, Trump has not released copies of his federal tax returns.

Donald Trump Jr. told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review this month that his father hadn't released his tax returns "because he's got a 12,000-page tax return that would create ... financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would distract from (his father's) main message."

Meanwhile, the elder Trump told the audience at the kick-off presidential debate last week that he had not shared his tax filings because he was being audited by the Internal Revenue Service.

In one of the most notable moments of the debate, Clinton accused Trump of not paying federal income taxes, and he fired back: "That makes me smart."

Cuban, a guest of Clinton at the debate, criticized Trump over the comment. (The two billionaires have their own feud going on.)
He told reporters that he tells his tax lawyers to "take advantage -- do what the law recommends," but that he's not against paying taxes.

"At some point you have to recognize you have to give back and you have to realize that this is a country that has been great to us," Cuban said, "and you can't just take, take, take, take, take, take, take."

Trump tax records obtained by The New York Times show he declared a loss of $916 million in 1995. But tax rules benefiting wealthy filers would have allowed the Republican nominee to cancel out up to $50 million in taxable income per year for up to 18 years, according to the newspaper.

The Trump campaign threatened The Times with legal action but has neither confirmed nor contested the legitimacy of the records.

Cuban tweeted that "it's hard to lose $1b."

Six years ago, Cuban volunteered to write a $100,000 check to help the city of Dallas with a budget shortfall and even supported a tax hike for wealthy homeowners like him. He told The Dallas Morning News he'd be OK raising the city tax rate by 5 cents "if it were only applied to homes valued at [$5 million] or more. And I would also be open to making a voluntary contribution of $100k...." At the time, Cuban's Preston Hollow home was valued at more than $14 million.

Earlier this year, he pledged $1 million for the Dallas Police Department after the Orlando shooting. Mayor Mike Rawlings said the money would help pay for increased police presence in Dallas' Oak Lawn neighborhood and other counterterrorism efforts.

Because Trump has not released his tax returns, the extent of his charitable giving is unclear.

Still, The Washington Post has identified $3.9 million in Trump donations to charity since 2001, compared to $23.2 million given by the Clintons in the same time period. The Clinton figure was calculated using the couple's tax returns, according to The Post.

Two prominent Trump supporters on Sunday defended his possible use of the tax code to avoid paying federal income tax. In Sunday TV shows, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani used the same word to describe him: "genius."

States With More Schooling May be Tougher Test for Trump

Note to Mark Cuban paying taxes doesn't make you patriotic. Dying for your country does though !

Trump did everything he could to dodge the 'Nam draft, FYI for Fone.

We also need to keep in mind that most colleges are liberal. The political influence that runs in colleges is pretty deep and people often tend to think in a Hive mind among like people.