CNN reports that Trump paid no income taxes at all for 10 of 15 years since 2000. The CNN report is based on a story published by the New York Times (behind a pay wall). The Times apparently received Trump’s tax returns from an insider.
Trump denied the story and said he would release his tax returns when the IRS finishes auditing them. He has said this for four years. Being under audit is no barrier to releasing your tax returns. Trump’s taxes from 2000-2008 are no longer under audit, but he won’t release them.
If every American followed Trump’s example and dodged paying their taxes, the federal government would be unable to function.
The Times’ report did not include his returns for 2018 and 2019.
The story by Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig and Mike McIntire begins:
The Times obtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over more than two decades, revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.
Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.
He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.
As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.
There is/was a reason he did not want his taxes released. He paid no taxes for most of the years.
We finally got the proof of what we already suspected.
And, some deranged people will STILL vote for him.
Astounding!
I think there is more though. I think there may be some information about shady deals with Russia. I think he is connected to Putin in more ways than what he has disclosed.
No doubt!
You guys just never give up, do you? No matter how often no evidence materializes, it’s always just around the corner, some revelation just waiting to happen.
Trump was elected by Americans, not Russians. Did the Russians “try to interfere”? Yeah, probably. Every country interferes with every other country, the U.S. being one of the best. We have, in fact, actively regime-changed dozens of countries without even bothering to influence elections. But as far as who has had the most influence on U.S. elections, why is no one up in arms about Israel or Saudi Arabia? Why does it all boil down to a bunch of Russian trolls spending $100,000 on silly memes in broken English on Fakebook? If Americans are that gullible that that’s what sways our elections, why the hell are we fighting to save this country anyway?
Russiagate is the perfect cover so the Democrats never have to look at the failures of the 2016 election. They ran a terrible candidate who offered nothing to the people except derision and scorn. People who should be the natural Democratic base stayed home in droves while Trump’s enthusiastic base showed up because their leader is out there for them, or at least has the sense not to spit in their faces.
The Democrats are making the same, if not worse, mistakes in 2020, again spitting in the faces of their base, but this time their base is hurting even more with tens of millions being out of work, uninsured and facing homelessness. Yet all Biden can manage to offer are a few tweaks to the ACA that most people can’t afford anyway. If Trump’s taxes upset people so much, why are you not also up in arms about how much Biden gets from the health insurance industry to promote the lie that people actually want to keep their premiums, co-pays, deductibles and be at the mercy of their employers and insurance executives?
You almost have to wonder if the Democrats even want to win. I mean, who’d want to have to deal with this mess? It’s so much easier to gin up fear and hatred of the Orange Monster and blame every bad thing on him and Russia, Actually governing is hard, especially when you have nothing to offer. If there’s been any collusion, it’s been between the Democrats and the Republicans to maintain the illusion of democracy while actually perpetuating the duopoly that serves the interests of the powerful.
View at Medium.com
Dienne,
I will never understand your passionate defenses of Trump. After all we know about his crudeness, vulgarity, tax evasion, stacking of the Supreme Court with justices who will end health insurance and women’s reproductive rights, why do you defend Trump? This is really tiresome. I won’t post any more of your complaints about Biden and the Democratic party. The stakes are too high and the election is near.
Read Wayne Barrett’s account of Trump’s dishonesty and bad faith dealings. It was written in 1992, after 15 years of watching Trump screw over his employees, misrepresent the value of his properties and fail at running casinos. How the hell do you lose money as the owner of a casino???? The handwriting was on the wall back then. And his guardian angel, abettor and mentor was Roy Cohn. Your blindness to facts is perverse.
Diane Ravitch,
Aren’t you suspicious when someone keeps posting whenever you make a post with absolutely valid criticism of President Trump?
That’s not a Bernie Sanders’ supporter. That’s a Trump supporter.
It is also a blatant lie that “everyone wants to trade their private health insurance” for Bernie’s Medicare for All.
That poll also said the democrats would win in 2016. This poster claims that polls don’t matter. What matters is what people vote for.
I don’t think there was a person in this country who didn’t know Bernie Sanders wanted Medicare for All. And yet he couldn’t even win the democratic primary and would have no shot in the general election.
And that this person would post at this critical time — when we are about to get a third far right Supreme Court Justice – to say that we are forbidden to say anything negative about Trump but must direct our hatred to Biden is truly beyond belief. it is trolling.
Please don’t take this seriously because dienne77 would not be trying to drown out all criticism of Trump with her “Biden is the devil” posts.
Real progressives aren’t defending Trump. Trump supporters are defending Trump.
I agree about the duopoly. 😐
Ugh! must go! 😐
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/24/716374421/fact-check-russian-interference-went-far-beyond-facebook-ads-kushner-described
I cried the night Barack Obama was elected. Then we got from his administration a) Arne Duncan, b) Romneycare that was unaffordable to millions of Americans, and c) a continuation of Bush’s wars in precisely manner of Shrub and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice. So, Dienne, I understand your frustration.
However, the choice in this election is clear. We can have Biden, who will take climate change and clean air and water regulation seriously, restore our alliances, end the criminal treatment of asylum seekers, and protect the civil rights of women, LGBTX persons, and POC, and whom we can nudge toward a more equitable and progressive tax code. Or, we can continue with Trump, whose only interest is Trump–an environmental vandal who actively works against civil rights, supports autocrats worldwide, and straight up espouses racist and fascist principles, who believes in eugenics and an imperial presidency backed by brownshirts in the streets. Discussion of some hypothetical better candidate in this election is now entirely moot.
As Diane has wisely said, many times, on this site: Do not let a desire for perfection be the enemy of the good.
Bob Shepherd,
I was also disappointed we got Romneycare, but I don’t think that was entirely Obama’s fault. The Senate wasn’t willing to give up the filibuster yet (hindsight is 20/20) and Susan Collins made it clear that the only health care insurance she would allow to be put to a vote was Romneycare. No public option allowed.
Looking back, I see that having the ACA – even with all its’ flaws – was a good decision. Ted Kennedy was talking about universal healthcare in the 1970s! I hated Jimmy Carter because I thought he personally prevented universal healthcare because he was a tool of the corporate right wing. It wasn’t true, but I hated Jimmy Carter with just as much passion as certain people hate the democrats now — with unreasonable certainty that there was nothing good about Jimmy Carter and he was so dishonest and corrupt in his pursuit of the neo-liberal, neo-con pro-corporate agenda that defeating Jimmy Carter was as much my singular goal as defeating democrats is dienne77’s. I was wrong and I finally realized how stupid I was to ignore the many good things about Jimmy Carter and convince myself that the bad things made him as bad or worse than the most right wing Republican. I woke up and saw reality instead of my own anger at Jimmy Carter for wildly disappointing me.
That’s why I can’t understand why dienne77 hasn’t woken up yet. It’s long past time.
I now realize that the ACA, with all its flaws, was a very good thing. Because as much as Americans hated it, they also didn’t want it repealed. Once the ACA was in place, it could be reformed. If the Democrats had won in 2016, there would have been changes made to ACA – public options and perhaps more than made it start becoming increasingly indistinguishable from Medicare for All.
When Medicare was first enacted, it wasn’t the program it became. I’ve come to realize that it is better to get the public used to a big program like that (so that they would rather reform it than repeal it) and then make changes, because waiting for the perfect legislation to pass means waiting forever. Before the ACA, I was waiting for a federal healthcare program for non-senior citizens for almost 40 years!
I hate to comment on a thread started by our resident xxxxx, especially since she has not once had a comment on this blog that is relevant, informed or based on reality. But I feel I must, as much as I respect you NYCPSP, correct you on one thing. It was Obama’s fault that healthcare has become such a political football. First, if you will look at contemporaneous history, Obama literally had little-to-nothing do with the creation for the ACA. I was there and he stayed on the sidelines and let Congress dictate everything. He neither advocated for single payer nor what was Romneycare. When Congress passed a bill, he signed it into law. That was pretty much the extent of his engagement in the entire process. Then he committed a more egregious sin. He embraced the opposition’s naming of the bill and made it personal, calling it Obamacare–in my view the single most egregious political act until the Idiot was inaugurated. Imagine, for example, if Social Security was known as Roosevelt Security. Or Medicare were called Johnsoncare. Do you really think those policies would have become embedded in the American fabric. I think not. Obama was a great symbolic president with a silver tongue, much like JFK. But he was a mediocre president, also like JFK. His “greatness” is only enhanced in comparison to the abomination who is now in the White House and will, I fear, likely remain there and put the final nail in the coffin of the American Experiment.
Spellcheck is a real beeyatch.
“Imagine, for example, if Social Security was known as Roosevelt Security…”
GregB,
Those are good points and I didn’t know all of that. I always blamed the media for using that right wing term “Obamacare”. Was that from Obama himself?
I agree that Obama was a wildly disappointing president. But I was absolutely convinced that we’d have something passed in 1993 when it seemed popular and Clinton also failed. I know it’s easy to blame “she who must not be named”, but having watched that closely, there was a massive PR effort to discredit it like “Harry and Louise” and it worked!!! The public bought all the propaganda (not helped by awful media coverage).
The same propaganda was afoot in 2009, but Obama did manage to get something passed. Which meant the shoe was on the other foot because then the Republicans had to run on “repeal”, which is much harder and made the public like ACA more! I think if the dems sweep the presidency and Senate there will be good reforms to ACA that make people like it even more.
I grew up in the midwest, so I see the propaganda that real Trump-supporting people I know buy into and Bernie Sanders is a marxist to them and they are terrified of “government healthcare”. But I also think that with some good reforms of the ACA that aren’t controversial with the public (like a Medicare buy in), those same folks will be saying “keep your government hands off my Affordable healthcare! Maybe it just needs a different name : )
More interesting than the multitude of financial crimes is
that Miss Universe pageant. There are allegations of abuse towards young women and girls.
Not allegations, actual transcripts: “Well, I’ll tell you the funniest is that before a show, I’ll go backstage and everyone’s getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it,” Trump said. “You know, I’m inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good.”
“You know, the dresses. ‘Is everyone okay?’ You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody okay?’ And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that. But no, I’ve been very good,” he added.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/08/politics/trump-on-howard-stern/
GregB: Trump is a disgusting misogynistic creep.
Each crime is recorded each compounds the previous ones
Can his supporters many decent citizens who pay taxes and struggle turn a blind eye to each crime?
NBC reported recently about a survey that showed 39% of Catholics and evangelicals believe Trump is more virtuous than Biden.
Before the 2016 election, Trump said he could kill someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it. The voting of the conservative religious elected Trump.
Not according to Pope Frank
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/pope-francis-donald-trump-building-mexico-wall-not-christian-n520706
Last I read, Pope Francis is not 39% of American Catholics. I would post that those 39% consider him to be a fake pope and anything he utters is fake news.
…posit…
jcgrim-
The political campaign in America against abortion is solely the work of evangelicals? Or, there are no attempts to influence based on the issue because no voting segment is influenced by the issue?
Members of Trump’s campaign staff and Catholics on the WH staff are not on record saying the Catholic vote is essential to his win?
American Catholic organizations like the Knights of Columbus, Catholic Vote, and the Catholic League are working to defeat Trump o, are apolitical?
Steve Bannon did not geofence Catholic Churches for Republican messages?
Pope Francis’ comments about Trump policy are unrelated to any knowledge he may have about American Catholic support for the GOP?
Consistent statistics from polling sources PRRI, Pew, NBC are meaningless because they should not have been undertaken relative to American religion?
I don’t dispute that Pope Francis said what is reported in the article. Good for him. As a follow-up unrelated to the U.S., in the past couple of years, did a high visibility group of women resign en masse from a Vatican institution because their role had been diminished (fake news)?
“I’m not a businessman, but I played one on TV.” –Donald Trump, if he told the truth for once.
Financial disclosure should be a constitutional requirement in this modern day. Otherwise the financial bias of the potential candadite might be hidden from view. Is there a drawback to transparency? I cannot think of it.
I have read other news pieces that revealed the Trump Five: Kushner and the three children that run the family business with daddy Trump as their oppressive overlord, that they have two sets of books. One for the IRS and one for investors. The one for the IRS shows lots of losses while the one for investors shows lots of profits to lure these fools and suckers in so Trump can cheat them out of their money.
Michael Cohen said he ran 2 sets of books in his congressional testimony.
Has anyone considered the system that allows Trump (and many others, of all political stripes – Amazon, for instance, paid zero taxes on $12 billion in profits) to get away with this? How, specifically, does Biden plan to fix this system?
EXACTLY. Was has Jeff Bezos paid?
But why should any of them pay any taxes. As the Medusa-like Leona Helmsley (a friend of Trump) once sad, “only the little people pay taxes!”
What’s Trump’s plan? At least Biden won’t be appointing hard right wingers to the SCOTUS.
Agree!
Dienne,
This is the tax system Trump loves. He loves to protect his fellow plutocrats. Do you want four more years of the same with no hope for change?
We can think of a lot of reasons to elect Biden — because he’s not spewing racism and xenophobia and has some concern for climate change.
What dienne77 is signalling are that those things don’t matter to her.
dienne77 : “How, specifically, does Biden plan to fix this system?”
How about elaborating on how Trump plans to ‘fix’ the system? Many of us readers are interested in how you think he will do that since it is obvious he cheats and lies continuously.
Wasn’t Trump in agreement with McConnell on the ‘great tax cut for the middle class’ in 2017?
Oct 10, 2019The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was the largest tax overhaul in over three decades. … of the wealthy at the expense of the working class.
Once Trump’s defeat is achieved, Dienne’s warning should be heeded.
Theocracy and colonialism will not be stopped by one GOP presidential defeat nor even by an accompanying loss of the Senate.
One of the two branches of American theocracy is allied with the Koch network. Their economic plan for enslavement to the richest 0.1% can be staved off. The question is, by what process?
This is why he will not live office… they will come after him for tax fraud. The Election That Could Break America What If Trump Refuses to Concede? – The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-weekly-newsletter&utm_content=20200927&silverid-ref=MzM0NTY0NzMyNzIyS0
That is RIDICULOUS. He could easily be lead out of the Oval Office if you wave a bag of Burger King and some porn in front of him. Like a rat following the Pied Piper. Please!
He won’t leave period. 😮
I have been waiting for a journalist to get access to Don the Con’s taxes. When questioned about it, Trump appeared genuinely flummoxed, and he was the one that was stuttering. After a few seconds to collect his spin, he said, “It’s fake news.”
He’s a fraud, liar and con artist, but I doubt his base will waiver one iota. It’s time for a new round of ads. Working people should be offended that this man that lives in a gilded cage in more than one place pays less tax than they do. The press will have a field day with his debt. The gloves are off.
Any guesses as to who leaked this info to the NYTimes? Mine is Mary Trump. She & her brother are suing the entire Trump clan for inheritance. Mary & her family were terribly mistreated by the Trumps. She’s coming for her pound of flesh from that horrid clan.
Daily Kos posted about Trump’s SCOTUS nominee- “believes all Civil Rights Legislation is illegitimate…opposed to marriage equality, opposed to extension of rights to transgender Americans…” Brown vs. Board of education is mentioned in the article.
Two conservative SCOTUS decisions in 2020 show where the court is headed, Biel v. St. James Catholic school and Espinosa v. Montana.
How can anyone consider him a legitimate president when he does NOT represent most Americans by 3million 800,000 thousand votes? If he is illegitimate I believe the 3 SCOTUS judges are also. They do not represent the will of the majority of Americans either, . Where am I wrong with this assertion. Yes, the electoral college made him president but not the American people.
Unless it has been changed, we elect electors (in the EC) who select the president. 😮
The electoral college is one of the first things that needs to go if Democrats win big.
From the Guardian: In his first two years as president, Trump received $73m from foreign operations, including $3m from the Philippines, $2.3m from India and $1m from Turkey. In 2017 he paid $145,400 in taxes in India and $156,824 in the Philippines – but just $750 in the US.
The president has been notoriously outspoken in his praise for the leaders of the Philippines, India and Turkey.
Does Trump’s substantial income from abroad conflict with his responsibilities as president? Did he put his personal interest ahead of the American people? Did he break the law? end of citation – Answers to the last 3 questions: a resounding YES! YES! AND YES!
What a blatant shameless chiseler (crook) Trump is. He paid far more taxes to India and the Philippines than the US though even those taxes were chump change. And right on cue, he just calls it fake news, false reporting and the Trumpistas will accept his lame excuses and rationalizations without question.
I really hope that Biden goes on full attack mode at the debate and rips Trump to shreds. It’s long overdue.
As US President, Ugh! shouldn’t be involved with Philippines, India and Turkey in any way. ☹️
I sent this comment in to the NYT and so far 480 clicked that they like it!!!
………………………………………
Trump paid $750 in taxes for two years and then nothing for the previous 15 years.
Dang, I’m a retired elementary music teacher. Wish my taxes had been that low.
I’m honest and therein lies the HUGE difference.
Poor Trump. He is now claiming that the IRS ‘treats me very badly’. His taxes are ‘under audit” or else he would be glad to show them.
Watch this if you can stand Trump’s lying, disgusting face:
………………………………………………….
Trump Calls Years of Tax Avoidance ‘Fake News,’ Attacks I.R.S.
President Trump denied wrongdoing and attacked the I.R.S. in response to questions about a New York Times investigation into his taxes.
By Reuters•September 27, 2020
The aren’t blatantly saying it, but it sounds like some Catholics are speaking out against Trump and his inability to care for anyone but himself.
…………………………………………..
Morality in Government
Sep 8, 2020
Franciscan Action Network
In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis teaches that our patron, St. Francis of Asissi “shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.”
Here in the United States, we have the ability and the responsibility to choose who speaks for us. We are blessed with an incredibly diverse people and we must rise above what divides us and come together for the good of all citizens. We need moral leaders who are truly servants and will lead with virtue, compassion, integrity, and honesty.
While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.
No to a financial system which rules rather than serves
Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence. The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence, yet without equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode. When a society – whether local, national or global – is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility. This is not the case simply because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root. Just as goodness tends to spread, the toleration of evil, which is injustice, tends to expand its baneful influence and quietly to undermine any political and social system, no matter how solid it may appear. If every action has its consequences, an evil embedded in the structures of a society has a constant potential for disintegration and death. It is evil crystallized in unjust social structures, which cannot be the basis of hope for a better future. We are far from the so-called “end of history”, since the conditions for a sustainable and peaceful development have not yet been adequately articulated and realized.
No to the inequality which spawns violence
How many NYC mobsters gave been put in jail for tax evasion? I hope that list will now include the Trump and members of the Trump organization.
First, they’ll need some forensic accountants to go over all the elements of Trump’s claims.
I imagine it will go something like this …
Karma
Brad Parscale
Yeah! Was Brad fired? Also, as per everyone else involved, the golden it45 won’t be touched, but Parscale will be indicted & thrown in prison & then (if it 45 so chooses) will be put under house arrest instead of prison due to covid.
You say Karma, I say Schadenfreude
You say potato, I say potahto
Let’s call the whole thing off!
To retired teacher up there, 9/27, 9:09 PM: you are SO right. Aside from the thinking about people HRC called “a basket of deplorables,” so many it45 supporters I’ve spoken to (these are educated, well-off suburbanites) have expressed to me that they “think he’s funny.” I have witnessed the same people actually LOL at something it has said, & I’m not talking about “covfefe,” although a few commented to me that it really was “kidding” about folks drinking bleach & other disinfectants, “Don’t you have any sense of humor?” I was asked. I am not talking about people (like it45) who don’t read or are consistently watching tv, sports, guzzling beer or toting guns around to peaceful demonstrations. In fact, many of them are anti-NRA. But, of course, it45, according to them, has nothing to do w/all the violence & hatred going on around us.
I can only hope (I prayed about it, today) that Biden can hold it together at the debate tomorrow–no gaffes &, also, using his dazzling smile & laughing at the ridiculous name-calling, taunting & statements that will be made. Yes, I think laughing at it45 would be a great tactic: it45 would hate that, wouldn’t it? Achilles heel struck, mission accomplished! &… they should be made to stand behind a podium, or remain seated at tables. (My husband & I were watching C-Span last night, as they rebroadcast the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon Debates–didn’t get up, didn’t move around, moderator took great pains to be, well, a moderator, & fully explained the rules of the debate after, as well. The good old days.) There should be absolutely no reason for that, as in that ridiculous HRC-it45 debate, when it45 was following her around, shadowing her–apparently, attempting to make her a penumbra!
&, BTW, there will be NO fact-checking in tomorrow night’s debate, which Fox’s Chris Wallace–& Chris Wallace alone–is moderating. That having been said, Chris Wallace has been pretty hard on it45 in some interviews.
Perhaps he’s starting to take after his father. Let’s hope that’s the case tomorrow night.
We are concerned, rightly so, about Trump’s taxes and Barrett who will bring this country back into its dark ages but we should also be concerned about COVID-19. The U.S. has one quarter of the population and at least 20% of the deaths. We have NO leadership and that is something horribly wrong.
Indiana’s Gov. Holcomb [R-IN] has now declared everything back to normal except we still have to wear masks. I believe he wants to make Trump supporters happy since he is running for re-election. Some of them are still complaining that they have to wear a mask.
The U.S., Brazil and India have the world’s highest number of infected people. Look at the charts.
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Coronavirus has now contributed to the deaths of one million people worldwide.
By The Visual and Data Journalism Team
BBC News
1 hour ago
The report of the millionth death arrived just short of 10 months after the first confirmed death, in China in January.
In Latin America, Brazil has the highest number of deaths, with more than 140,000 so far. It has also recorded more than 4.7 million cases, the third highest in the world.
Newly confirmed cases in the region are also rising quickly in Argentina, which now has more than 700,000 infections.
In the Middle East, Iran has been badly affected by the virus, and in the past week has confirmed its highest number of new cases since early June.
Neighbouring Iraq has seen a steady rise in cases.
A number of European countries have re-imposed lockdowns and other restrictions in their worst-affected regions, and there have been fresh appeals for people to wear face coverings and follow social distancing rules.
The pattern of rising infections following the loosening of lockdown restrictions is not limited to Europe, though.
Israel has imposed a new national lockdown after recording a record number of daily cases in recent days.
Other countries that have seen a resurgence of the virus include Russia, Peru, South Korea, Canada and Australia – although following the reintroduction of tougher restrictions some of these are now seeing cases fall again.
The US has recorded more than seven million cases of coronavirus, more than a fifth of the world’s total. Following a second rise in cases in July, numbers fell back in August, but appear to be on the rise again now.
With more than 200,000 deaths, the US also has the world’s highest death toll…
Meanwhile, the United Nations has said that up to 265 million people could face starvation by the end of the year because of the impact of Covid-19.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105
News from AP:
Ethics experts see national security concern in Trump’s massive debt; Trump went even further than other uber-rich to shrink taxes
Revelations that Donald Trump is personally liable for more than $400 million in debt is casting a shadow that ethics experts say raises national security concerns that he could be manipulated to sway U.S. policy by organizations and individuals he’s indebted to.
A former White House ethics attorney says Trump’s debt load — coupled with a series of bankruptcies by Trump-owned companies — raises the question: Why have lenders been willing to loan the president such enormous amounts of cash? Aamer Madhani and Deb Riechmann have that story.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a frequent Trump critic, was blunt about the potential implications. “He may be vulnerable to financial blackmail from a hostile foreign power and God knows what else.”
U.S. Tax Favoring the Rich: The tax-avoidance strategies that Trump capitalized on to shrink his tax burden to essentially zero are surprisingly common among major real estate developers and other uber-wealthy Americans. Yet Trump, property mogul turned politician, characteristically pushed those strategies to the limit, perhaps to the breaking point, Paul Wiseman and Marcy Gordon report. So say tax experts in the wake of a New York Times report that found that Trump paid only $750 in taxes in both 2016 and 2017 — and none at all in 11 of the 18 years it examined.