…I dunno if we’ve tipped the scale for joe’s red line in rafah…but…they told yet more hundreds of thousands of people to flee so it isn’t feeling any less like it to me…&…I can’t…or rather…I *can*…not have that be the all of everything for this clutch of my waking hours…so…I dunno…maybe I’ll look into lowkey when it comes time for the tunes…but…for now…by way of an unpleasant distraction…can we talk about the low key telling on yourself for a minute?

Mr. Trump struck a deal in 2001 to acquire land and a building that was then home to the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. Two years later, after publicly toying with the idea of constructing the world’s tallest building there, he unveiled plans for a more modest tower, with 486 residences and 339 “hotel condominiums” that buyers could use for short stays and allow Mr. Trump’s company to rent out. He initially estimated that construction would last until 2007 and cost $650 million.

…not what you tell the world

“When it’s finished in 2007, the Trump International Hotel and Tower, Chicago, could have a value of $1.2 billion and will raise the standards of architectural excellence throughout the world.”

…I don’t have a tally for the people he calls cheats & liars all over town but never under pain of perjury…but…actions speak louder than words…& alarm bells ring on the regular…so…it’s not like I expect anyone needs a diagram…but a good accountant is worth their weight in gold…& the IRS may “not be sending their best” but spin shady been dipping on tipping the nice people to how he earns through his returns

As his cost estimates increased, Mr. Trump arranged to borrow as much as $770 million for the project — $640 million from Deutsche Bank and $130 million from Fortress Investment Group, a hedge fund and private equity company. He personally guaranteed $40 million of the Deutsche loan. Both Deutsche and Fortress then sold off pieces of the loans to other institutions, spreading the risk and potential gain.

…& same old, same old

Mr. Trump planned to sell enough of the 825 units to pay off his loans when they came due in May 2008. But when that date came, he had sold only 133. At that point, he projected that construction would not be completed until mid-2009, at a revised cost of $859 million.

…but

He asked his lenders for a six-month extension. A briefing document prepared for the lenders, obtained by The Times and ProPublica, said Mr. Trump would contribute $89 million of his own money, $25 million more than his initial plan. The lenders agreed.

…here we have another example

But sales did not pick up that summer, with the nation plunged into the financial crisis that would become the Great Recession. When Mr. Trump asked for another extension in September, his lenders refused.

…& someone’s been kind enough to show their working

Two months later, Mr. Trump defaulted on his loans and sued his lenders, characterizing the financial crisis as the kind of catastrophe, like a flood or hurricane, covered by the “force majeure” clause of his loan agreement with Deutsche Bank. That, he said, entitled him to an indefinite delay in repaying his loans. Mr. Trump went so far as to blame the bank and its peers for “creating the current financial crisis.” He demanded $3 billion in damages.

…liability for thee & not for me…& I shouldn’t have to pay my debts if reality won’t respect my fond belief that I’m entitled to get something for nothing…caveat some other poor emptor…I’m walking, here…I may not be a stable genius™…but it feels like any crooked bastard could make money that way…even a titanic among men

At the time, Mr. Trump had paid down his loans with $99 million in sales but still needed more money to complete construction. At some point that year, he concluded that his investment in the tower was worthless, at least as the term is defined in partnership tax law.

Mr. Trump’s worthlessness claim meant only that his stake in 401 Mezz Venture, the L.L.C. that held the tower, was without value because he expected that sales would never produce enough cash to pay off the mortgages, let alone turn a profit.

When he filed his 2008 tax return, he declared business losses of $697 million. Tax records do not fully show which businesses generated that figure. But working with tax experts, The Times and ProPublica calculated that the Chicago worthlessness deduction could have been as high as $651 million, the value of Mr. Trump’s stake in the partnership — about $94 million he had invested and the $557 million loan balance reported on his tax returns that year.

…& sure…can I believe biff could spaff the best part of a billion bucks up the wall between this fall & next…damn skippy, I do…what smells squiffy to me is how well the numbers correlate when he offsets balances to shift the center of gravity so the weeble wobbles but it don’t fall down…& that’s some dry & dusty shit to choke down of a morning so I don’t blame anyone for skipping over it…or this…but…to hold on for the unforgiving minute

When business owners report losses greater than their income in any given year, they can retain the leftover negative amount as a credit to reduce their taxable income in future years. As it turned out, that tax-reducing power would be of increasing value to Mr. Trump. While many of his businesses continued to lose money, income from “The Apprentice” and licensing and endorsement agreements poured in: $33.3 million in 2009, $44.6 million in 2010 and $51.3 million in 2011.

…if I had billions in assets depreciating by the hundreds of millions while assholes & cable execs threw tens of millions in cash at me maybe I’d skip paying my taxes by creatively adjusting things in line with the 90% of my living space that only existed in my mind & on my accounts while telling anyone who’d listen how I couldn’t help but make money at every turn because I never lose…while claiming I’d lost more money than I’d ever make so it would be just mean if I had to pay tax on all the cash coming in…& maybe that would make me considered a business savant…& not a federally-indictable multiply-impeached fraud joined at the hip to hostile foreign interests…but I don’t want to get distracted by diving into exactly whose money deutsche bank funneled to the man before he wrote off that & change as a tax-creditable loss…but how many damn bites does it take before the IRS admits the cherry been took?

Mr. Trump’s advisers girded for a potential audit of the worthlessness deduction from the moment they claimed it, according to the filings from the New York attorney general’s lawsuit. Starting in 2009 Mr. Trump’s team excluded the Chicago tower from the frothy annual “statements of financial condition” that Mr. Trump used to boast of his wealth, out of concern that assigning value to the building would conflict with its declared worthlessness, according to the attorney general’s filing. (Those omissions came even as Mr. Trump fraudulently inflated his net worth to qualify for low-interest loans, according to the ruling in the attorney general’s lawsuit.)

Mr. Trump had good reason to fear an audit of the deduction, according to the tax experts consulted for this article. They believe that Mr. Trump’s tax advisers pushed beyond what was defensible.

The worthlessness deduction serves as a way for a taxpayer to benefit from an expected total loss on an investment long before the final results are known. It occupies a fuzzy and counterintuitive slice of tax law. Three decades ago, a federal appeals court ruled that the judgment of a company’s worthlessness could be based in part on the opinion of its owner. After taking the deduction, the owner can keep the “worthless” company and its assets. Subsequent court decisions have only partly clarified the rules. Absent prescribed parameters, tax lawyers have been left to handicap the chances that a worthlessness deduction will withstand an I.R.S. challenge.

There are several categories, with a declining likelihood of success, of money taxpayers can claim to have lost.

The tax experts consulted for this article universally assigned the highest level of certainty to cash spent to acquire an asset. The roughly $94 million that Mr. Trump’s tax returns show he invested in Chicago fell into this category.

Some gave a lower, though still probable, chance of a taxpayer prevailing in declaring a loss based on loans that a lender agreed to forgive. That’s because forgiven debt generally must be declared as income, which can offset that portion of the worthlessness deduction in the same year. A large portion of Mr. Trump’s worthlessness deduction fell in this category, though he did not begin reporting forgiven debt income until two years later, a delay that would have further reduced his chances of prevailing in an audit.

The tax experts gave the weakest chance of surviving a challenge for a worthlessness deduction based on borrowed money for which the outcome was not clear. It reflects a doubly irrational claim — that the taxpayer deserves a tax benefit for losing someone else’s money even before the money has been lost, and that those anticipated future losses can be used to offset real income from other sources. Most of the debt included in Mr. Trump’s worthlessness deduction was based on that risky position.

…it sounds dumb…but one of the more useful bits of advice I got as a kid was “don’t spend money more than once”…meaning while you’re waiting on pay day, if you tell yourself that it’ll cover the credit card but then spend as much again in cash before paying off the card…you’ve spent your one check twice & are about to have to pay for the privilege of stealing from yourself…more or less…but like always that makes me the asshole because I should have been demanding that just for me the taxman make a special exception where in fact that works the opposite way…who knew?

…who am I kidding…I couldn’t even afford the requisite number of shell companies…& those have a pretty low overhead

Mr. Trump continued to sell units at the Chicago Tower, but still below his costs. Had he done nothing, his 2008 worthlessness deduction would have prevented him from claiming that shortfall as losses again. But in 2010, his lawyers attempted an end-run by merging the entity through which he owned the Chicago tower into another partnership, DJT Holdings L.L.C. In the following years, they piled other businesses, including several of his golf courses, into DJT Holdings.

Those changes had no apparent business purpose. But Mr. Trump’s tax advisers took the position that pooling the Chicago tower’s finances with other businesses entitled him to declare even more tax-reducing losses from his Chicago investment.

…the man may be the biggest welfare queen in the history of societal insecurity…& I know it’s nothing new if you’ve been following along since before it was clear that daddy-dearest did his damnedest to ensure that the family name be forever synonymous with picking the taxpayers’ pocket with one hand & ripping off anyone fool enough to deal in good faith with the other…but…people who admit to lesser degrees of delusion get certified & institutionalized on a daily basis…& if he’s…well, definitely not “too honest”…but if pride won’t let him take the insanity defense…then he hasn’t even a bad penny to his name he doesn’t owe to a handout…& in a lot of cases it turned out to be a recurring charge on the public purse like that time you accidentally signed up to the book of the month club & couldn’t figure out how to cancel

His financial problems there continued. More than 100 of the hotel condominiums never sold. Sales of all units totaled only $727 million, far below Mr. Trump’s budgeted costs of $859 million. And some 70,000 square feet of retail space remained vacant because it had been designed without access to foot or vehicle traffic. From 2011 through 2020, Mr. Trump reported $168 million in additional losses from the project.

Those additional write-offs helped Mr. Trump avoid tax liability for his continuing entertainment riches, as well as his unpaid debt from the tower. Starting in 2010, his lenders agreed to forgive about $270 million of those debts. But he was able to delay declaring most of that income until 2014 and spread it out over five years of tax returns, thanks to a provision in the Obama administration’s stimulus bill responding to the Great Recession. In 2018, Mr. Trump reported positive income for the first time in 11 years. But his income tax bill still amounted to only $1.9 million, even as he reported a $25 million gain from the sale of his late father’s assets.

…3-card monte…only all the numbers are inflated, dilated & deprecated to obfuscate the part where the whole thing is, literally, a confidence trick…not some tasteful sting with paul newman, neither…just some shabby dollar-store knock-off…but it works on “the markets” so why not on the taxman…all’s fair in love & war?

The I.R.S. explained its position in a Technical Advice Memorandum, released in 2019, that identified Mr. Trump only as “A” Such memos, reserved for cases where the law is unclear, are rare and involve extensive review by senior I.R.S. lawyers. The agency produced only two other such memos that year.

…I know it’s not juicy like when the lady from the risky business takes the stand & everybody stans…but dem dry bones are literally skeletons in his closet & when they get unburied it bodies the man…&…not going to lie…I am very much at home to that

The memos are required to be publicly released with the taxpayer’s information removed, and this one was more heavily redacted than usual. Some partnership specialists wrote papers exploring its meaning and importance to other taxpayers, but none identified taxpayer “A” as the then-sitting president of the United States. The Times and ProPublica matched the facts of the memo to information from Mr. Trump’s tax returns and elsewhere.

The 20-page document is dense with footnotes, calculations and references to various statutes, but the core of the I.R.S.’s position is that Mr. Trump’s 2010 merger violated a law meant to prevent double dipping on tax-reducing losses. If done properly, the merger would have accounted for the fact that Mr. Trump had already written off the full cost of the tower’s construction with his worthlessness deduction.

In the I.R.S. memo, Mr. Trump’s lawyers vigorously disagreed with the agency’s conclusions, saying he had followed the law.

If the I.R.S. prevails, Mr. Trump’s tax returns would look very different, especially those from 2011 to 2017. During those years, he reported $184 million in income from “The Apprentice” and agreements to license his name, along with $219 million from canceled debts. But he paid only $643,431 in income taxes thanks to huge losses on his businesses, including the Chicago tower. The revisions sought by the I.R.S. would require amending his tax returns to remove $146 million in losses and add as much as $218 million in income from condominium sales. That shift of up to $364 million could swing those years out of the red and well into positive territory, creating a tax bill that could easily exceed $100 million.

…it’s speculative…but…in terms of accumulated speculation…at a conservative estimate…how wide is the sucking maw of the black hole of debt at the heart of his balance sheet…if we run with a true accounting of his “assets”…& get clear-eyed about his mounting liabilities?

…asking for a friend

The only public sign of the Chicago audit came in December 2022, when a congressional Joint Committee on Taxation report on I.R.S. efforts to audit Mr. Trump made an unexplained reference to the section of tax law at issue in the Chicago case. It confirmed that the audit was still underway and could affect Mr. Trump’s tax returns from several years.

…still & all…we all make mistakes

That the I.R.S. did not initiate an audit of the 2008 worthlessness deduction puzzled the experts in partnership taxation. Many assumed the understaffed I.R.S. simply had not realized what Mr. Trump had done until the deadline to investigate it had passed.

“I think the government recognized that they screwed up,” and then audited the merger transaction to make up for it, Mr. Jackel said.

The agency’s difficulty in keeping up with Mr. Trump’s maneuvers, experts said, showed that this gray area of tax law was too easy to exploit.

“Congress needs to radically change the rules for the worthlessness deduction,” Professor Schwidetzky said.

Trump May Owe $100 Million From Double-Dip Tax Breaks, Audit Shows [NYT]

…can’t say it’s altered my own deductions about the worthlessness of the man, his supposed assets & his hideous liabilities…but…well…every so often I get brought up short by the short shrift we give to the scale of the grift just because there’s so much else out there with a more urgent claim on our attentions & affections…& for many, affectations…often, ironically enough, masquerading as reflections of signified affections…but…if you can…try for a minute to imagine that was about the personal finances of an ex-head of state with an almost-coup to his name in…say…rwanda…rwanda’s been in the news plenty & the tories have been throwing money at their leaders in sums big enough to buoy up your boy

…I don’t believe it would just be me that would read any election that guy didn’t lose as stolen…bought & paid for, maybe…but stolen all the same…& here we are…& that’s a first world problem we ain’t got time for even when it sees the light of day

…&…honestly…maybe it’s more insanity rather than a moment of clarity…but…besides abundant profanity…or according-to-hannity…it feels uncomfortably like our semiotics require colonics…& I dunno…I might be prepared to bet that derp fantafuhrer might look mighty white with the shit kicked out of him…maybe still not to the point of transparency…but at least translucent…& then, who knows…maybe medical science could figure out how to get up in there with the good UV & we could all gather around for a lightbulb moment

…don’t mind me…a sleep-deprived mind is…not about to win any beauty contests…speaking of which…didn’t that asshole act the asshole with one of them?

The sudden resignations of Miss USA and Miss Teen USA have triggered a fresh wave of scrutiny into the pageants’ owner, the Miss Universe Organization, as it continues to navigate what some close to the pageants see as an uncertain future.

Beauty pageants, with a history in the U.S. that stretches back to the 19th century, have in recent decades struggled to maintain relevance as cultural norms have shifted. The Miss America pageant, the main rival to the Miss Universe Organization, has similarly had to figure out how to counter declining TV ratings and its own leadership scandal.

Years of leadership turmoil and shake-ups at the Miss Universe Organization, which has both U.S. and Thailand-based ownership, preceded the current controversy. In 2023, after Miss Universe owner JKN Global Group filed for bankruptcy, its longtime president resigned. Her replacement then resigned in February. In 2020, the Miss Universe Organization handed the reins of the Miss USA pageant to a former titleholder, Crystle Stewart. After favoritism allegations shook up the 2022 competition, fashion designer Laylah Rose replaced Stewart. 

And before that, in 2015, NBCUniversal ended its relationship with the pageants after then-Miss Universe owner and presidential candidate Donald Trump accused Mexico of sending criminals and rapists over the border. NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC News.

Miss USA resignation scandal pulls back curtain on pageant industry struggles [NBC]

…what is it they say…check your privilege?

Clarence Thomas told attendees at a judicial conference Friday that he and his wife have faced “nastiness” and “lies” over the last several years and decried Washington DC as a “hideous place”.

The US supreme court justice spoke at a conference attended by judges, attorneys and other court personnel in the 11th circuit judicial conference, which hears federal cases from Alabama, Florida and Georgia. He made the comments pushing back on his critics in response to a question about working in a world that seems mean-spirited.

…something, something…true colors…something…it’s all in the game?

“I think there’s challenges to that,” Thomas said. “We’re in a world and we – certainly my wife and I the last two or three years it’s been – just the nastiness and the lies, it’s just incredible.

“But you have some choices. You don’t get to prevent people from doing horrible things or saying horrible things. But one, you have to understand and accept the fact that they can’t change you, unless you permit that.”

…don’t generally think of clarence as a permissive soul…as a rule…what with how he rules…& when he don’t rule himself out…but maybe a bit less j’accuse & a bit more je me recuse would go a long way…who’s to say?

His wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, has faced criticism for using her Facebook page to amplify unsubstantiated claims of corruption by Joe Biden as the Democrat seeks a second term as president.

He did not discuss the content of the criticisms directly, but said that “reckless” people in Washington will “bomb your reputation”.

“They don’t bomb you necessarily, but they bomb your reputation or your good name or your honor,” Thomas said. “And that’s not a crime. But they can do as much harm that way.”

…didn’t have homeboy down as progressive enough to let his mrs take a 3rd person pronoun “that way”…but…speak as you find…blind leading the blind…yadda yadda…pitter patter…uhhhh…let’s get at ‘er…ummm…’em?

“I think what you are going to find, and especially in Washington, people pride themselves on being awful. It is a hideous place as far as I’m concerned,” Thomas said.

…uh huh

The justice said he believed it is important to use language in court rulings so the law is accessible to the average person.

“The regular people I think are being disenfranchised sometimes by the way that we talk about cases,” Thomas said.

…do tell

Brett Kavanaugh said on Friday that US history shows court decisions unpopular in their time later can become part of the “fabric of American constitutional law”.

…like…calling your law clerks “pledges” or shot-gunning brewskies from the bench could be respectable if you people would just respect a jowly motherfucker who’s about bros before hoes…particularly when “ho” is defined as “women [&/or drs] who won’t sleep with your sorry ass”…& bros are likewise overgrown frat-boys whose diligent dues payments in line with their self-entitlement mysteriously caused them to experience near-zero friction as they rose beyond their station despite the hypothetical encumbrance of multiple credible accusations of criminally-misogynist behavior…but…I digress

US supreme court justice gives one-hour talk at meeting of judges, attorneys and other court personnel of 11th circuit court of appeals [Guardian]

…& it’s some folks’ day of rest…so I probably ought to give it one

…but they say a change is as good as

…& I know when it comes to this sort of thing I wouldn’t be…but…sometimes it doesn’t matter how you get there…so…truth be told…it was some boys from chicago who did a hip hop othello I once caught at the actual globe…not THSC…but…back in the day I admit it might have been this that brought the man to my attention

…not because I worked back from the dreaming spires

…actually…that’d be a little white lie…pretty sure the first tune of his I paid enough attention to that I went looking for it again would have been this one

…but that’s still not the first one you get if you google “akala, shakespeare, rap”…shit was catnip, though…anyway…I’m not going to bore you all with why I’d give him the edge over lowkey…or how mic righteous was pretty much righteous when he called out tim westwood & the industry closed ranks & tried to close him down the way his seaside hometown shuttered the dreamland he named an album after…because why should any of you care when it’s all you can do not to have your blood boil?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/11/brutal-heatwaves-submerged-cities-what-3c-world-would-look-like

…but some days…if I’m honest…it does make me feel better knowing that one man’s terrorist

…also reps a people’s army…but when this guy mentions “distinguished guests”

…clip 4 of 8 is…lowkey…& maybe you wouldn’t like his take on “obama nation”…though any bombs dropped there were considerably more rhetorical in one case than the other…& he did kick it off with a disclaimer

This track is not an attack upon the American people
It is an attack upon the system within which they live
Since 1945 the united states has attempted to
Overthrow more than 50 foreign governments
In the process the US has caused the end of life
For several million people, and condemned many millions
More to a life of agony and despair

…still…speaking for myself…I got love for america…it’s been good to me…& as much pride as shame in the land of my birth…but…as far as that goes for an opening statement…I struggle to spot the lie…& when you get to draw from both…well…as a worthy once put it at a british library event…”decode that”

…so…for those who can’t abide the rap ting…I’m sorry to keep going back to the same well…but

…so if you’re job-description involves lining up “equality talks” for the “don’t be evil” crowd…who you gonna call?

…&…I wouldn’t want to argue with the man…mostly because when I listen to what he says I mostly find I’m more inclined to agree…but also because I think he has receipts on his side I’d struggle to offset with the rhetorical equivalent of a trump-scale tax-deductible loss showing up on my side of the ledger…& that wouldn’t be my choice of a hill to die on

…still…when obama admitted his favorite character on the wire was omar…for a moment I could feel some common ground between me & the most powerful man in the (then) world…&…as it goes…maybe I have more than one thing in common with your man, there?

…&…my stock of questions has ever outnumbered my supply of answers…& I’m aware there’s not really a formal demand for what I appear to be supplying today…but even for those of us of a decidedly wu-tang vintage

…& with all due respect to the genius

…when it comes to updating the back catalogue

…them young(er) lads might have themselves a point

…or two…or even more…& I like to believe it’s more despite than due to the likes of me that one might be that we

…but…even back in the day

…I maybe didn’t think the basic instructions were all that

…& maybe that’s telling…but…like omar said…”it’s all in the game”?

…so…while I’m nobody’s idea of a player…when it comes to that proverbial game I’d admit to feeling a certain sort of a way that strongly suggests that repayment in kind would be far from kind

…& I dare say the way I can make eyes glaze over it’s no surprise I live in one of them glass houses

…still…when I hear good advice I try to heed it

…despite the mood music

…that’s not really what sundays are about

…but…we don’t all relax the same way

…so

…this one’s for @farscythe ?

…& that’s more than enough out of me…after all…nobody’s going to make me the president…or give me the opportunity to turn down an order of the british empire…so…here’s a last word from the late, great mr zephaniah?

…in the unlikely event anybody needs me…I’ll be in the back…having a “shakezperience”…which…honestly…does not require urgent medication…although a mild sedative possibly wouldn’t go amiss?