Oops, Libertarian VP candidate William Weld says Trump's use of loss carryforward "not that uncommon"

After recently saying Hillary is the most qualified to be president and Gary Johnson himself admitting to not knowing what Aleppo is, the honesty from this libertarian pair is getting to be almost too much.

As in, "We're not serious! We're just running for fun! Look! I'm on TV again!"

Weld on CNN with Chris Cuomo, here, yesterday:

WELD: I say that the net operating loss carryforward is a well-known provision of the tax code. I hate to defend Donald Trump -- believe me when I tell you -- but it's not that uncommon.

Rush Limbaugh understands nothing about the tax returns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: Comparing them is comparing apples and oranges

The two tax returns couldn't be more different.

Trump in 1995 reported cumulative losses from his many pass-through entities on page 1 of his personal tax return as Net Operating Losses from businesses, which can be carried forward 15 years to offset net gains in those years and 3 years in arrears. All perfectly legal, but that's why he gets audited like hell, year after year.

Hillary reported a long term capital loss of almost $700,000 in 2015 for something on page 17, which would be interesting to know more about, but which she can't carry forward, and most of which she just had to eat because she's not organized to use pass-through entities like Trump is. If Rush had simply read page 18 of Hillary's return he'd have seen that Hillary did just that, eat it, like all taxpayers in the same situation, being entitled to only $3000 in long term capital losses in the reporting year. That's all she got. And none of the rest can carry forward because the loss was in that year. She ate it. People do it all the time, and quite unhappily.

That's what makes Trump smarter than Hillary, and smarter than most taxpayers. His affairs are arranged in a complicated fashion in order to maximize the tax consequences in his favor. Hillary isn't a fool for missing her tax-saving opportunities from such an arrangement, but Trump is very wise. It also probably costs him a tidy sum every year to keep it all straight.

Here is where Rush gets it all wrong:

RUSH:  We've got Hillary's tax returns from 2015, last year, the one that she just released her tax returns on, and it shows something strange, something awkward on page 17.  Line 14, long-term capital loss carryover.  Enter the amount, if any, from line 13 of your capital loss.  And the amount is $699,540.  Now, that's not on the scale of Trump's $915 million, but, in a nutshell, Hillary Clinton took a capital loss of $699,000 in 2015, as was reported on her tax return.

  

Where is the outrage?  Nobody even cares to report it.  That capital loss, she's allowed to carry that forward and it will affect how much income tax she owes in future years.  Same thing that we're dealing here with Trump.

Gay Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook doubles down, says "a lot of the people that stand by Donald Trump are deplorable"

Here.

Well, he ought to know.

Hillary's version of Obama's "clinging to their guns and religion": Sanders' supporters are the "children of the Great Recession, living in their parents' basement"

The Intercept has a transcript of a portion of the leaked Hillary audio here:

CLINTON: Some are new to politics completely. They’re children of the Great Recession. And they are living in their parents’ basement. They feel they got their education and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves. And they don’t see much of a future. I met with a group of young black millennials today and you know one of the young women said, “You know, none of us feel that we have the job that we should have gotten out of college. And we don’t believe the job market is going to give us much of a chance.” So that is a mindset that is really affecting their politics. And so if you’re feeling like you’re consigned to, you know, being a barista, or you know, some other job that doesn’t pay a lot, and doesn’t have some other ladder of opportunity attached to it, then the idea that maybe, just maybe, you could be part of a political revolution is pretty appealing. So I think we should all be really understanding of that and should try to do the best we can not to be, you know, a wet blanket on idealism. We want people to be idealistic. We want them to set big goals. But to take what we can achieve now and try to present them as bigger goals.

The Donald has been politically correct long enough

Hey Donald! We paid to see you burn down the house, to fight for America's forgotten citizens, but ever since August 17th when you brought in your little libertarian clique you've been trying to be too "presidential".

Go for Hillary's jugular. No holds barred. Everything's fair game. Scorch the earth. Dismantle the establishment. Fight until Washington is leveled and you're the last man standing.

You have nothing left to lose, so fight to the death. It's either us or them.

Yellen is political, talk of a future put in the form of the Fed buying stocks last week was intended to backstop the market this month

And a buoyant market in October 2016 will only help Clinton.

Yellen should be impeached immediately.

Reuters reported here last Thursday, but no one is touching this story with a ten foot pole because they all want Hillary elected:

"It could be useful to be able to intervene directly in assets where the prices have a more direct link to spending decisions," she said, adding that buying equities and corporate bonds could have costs and benefits.

It doesn't occur to Scott Sumner that "libertarian country" is an oxymoron

Here.

Paying zero taxes is almost the equivalent of dumping the tea in the harbor if you're Donald Trump . . .

. . . but not if you're The New York Times.

MS-13 is killing teenagers in Brentwood, Long Island, NY, and the authorities do nothing to stop it, but Trump might

Reported here:

The recent murders have exacerbated disputes in the town over immigration policy, which Donald J. Trump, the Republican candidate for president, fueled during last week’s debate by saying that the gangs roaming the streets were made up of illegal immigrants.

Clinton Defense Secretary wants to scrap ICBMs and nuclear cruise missiles, unilaterally

Here.

Traitor.

Hillary supporters vandalize Trump Hotel in DC

Self-hating Hillarycon Rod Dreher repeatedly posts comments to his own article which call him hysterical and compare him to Andrew Sullivan

Here, in the magazine which pioneered the Obamacons.

Also I much liked the commenter who put him at the heart of Conservatism Inc. during the Bush presidency. Yep, he posted that one too.

Fined $14 billion by the US, Deutsche Bank paid the Clintons nearly $1 million for four speeches 2012-2014

The Houston Chronicle reports here, but does its job for Hillary by making it a story about the GOP, not about the Clinton Family Crime Foundation:

Officials from the German bank, which U.S. regulators slapped with a $14 billion fine this month, paid $955,000 to the Clintons between 2012 and 2014 for a total of four speeches, according to financial disclosure records.

September 2016 climate summary for Grand Rapids, Michigan: 10th warmest since 1892 by average temperature

September 2016 climate summary for Grand Rapids, Michigan

Average temperature was 66.4 degrees F. Normal is 62.7. The month ranked 10th warmest September since 1892. The hottest September by average temperature was in 1931 at 69.0. September 2016 was 3.8% cooler than that.

The normal 9-month average temperature is 51.0. Year to date the average temperature is 54.1, about 6.1% warmer than normal due to the El Nino, which ended this summer. The warmest full year on record by average temperature was 2012, at 52.8. The 9-month year to date average temperature in 2012 was 56.4, about 4.25% warmer than in 2016.

Here is 2016 average temperature 9-months year to date in perspective:

1921: 56.44
2012: 56.40
2010: 54.55
1998: 54.47 (VS El Nino year)
1894: 54.36
1931: 54.18 (El Nino year)
2016: 54.11 (VS El Nino year).

September 2016 was drier than normal with 2.4 inches of rain. Normal is 3.57. Year to date 33.94 inches of rain have fallen. Normal year to date is 26.31. Still cuttin' grass.

Cooling degree days totaled 95 in September, 28% above the normal 74. The warmest September by CDD occurred also in 1931 with 185 CDD. September 2016 was 49% lower than that.

Year to date CDD totals 926, 35% higher than the normal 686 for the year to date. The record for highest annual CDD was set in 1921 at 1200, for lowest annual CDD in 1992 at 316. Normal annual CDD is 694. Year to date CDD is 33% above the normal annual level, but still 23% below the record annual level set in 1921.

Drive by media focus on Clinton's comments on Sanders supporters in leaked audio when the real news is she says she's against modernizing the US nuclear deterrent

And then there's Hispanic Mattress Girl.

An adolescent, unserious country, and Hillary's playing right along as long as it gets her elected.

Hillary Clinton's fantasy definition of middle class includes 98.8% of the country

Here, where she says it's anyone making less than $250,000:

Clinton has pledged not to raise taxes on the middle class and reiterated her statement to the reporter, which she defined as any American making less than $250,000.

In 2014 98.8% of individual wage earners made less than $250,000.

NYT: Trump admits microphone malfunction distracted him during Debate One

Here:

He complained that the changing volume had distracted him and alleged again that someone had created the problem deliberately.

“They had somebody modulating the microphone, so when I was speaking, the mike would go up and down,” Mr. Trump said. “I spent 50 percent of my thought process working the mike.” He had wanted to pause the debate to address the problem, Mr. Trump said, but felt he could not. “How can I stop the show if I had 100 million people watching?” he said.

Libertarian spoiler Gary Johnson is helping Hillary defeat Trump in eight states and win the presidency, suggesting Trump needs to talk more free market economics

Current polling in "Toss-Up" states shows Libertarian Gary Johnson spoiling it for Trump in FL, ME, MI, MN, NH, PA, VA and WI, handing Hillary 104 Electoral College votes to her base number of 188 for a total of 292, 22 more than she needs to become president. 

Clinton's average win in these eight states right now is by 4.1, with Johnson siphoning off an average of 8.5 from Trump. Clinton is winning in these states despite an average siphon from her totals of 2.4 by Stein.

In FL, it's Clinton winning +1.2 (Johnson 5.8/Stein 1.3).

In ME, it's Clinton +3.8 (Johnson 11.0/Stein 3.8).

In MI, it's Clinton +5.0 (Johnson 8.8/Stein 2.3).

In MN, it's Clinton +4.3 (Johnson 5.3/Stein 2.0).

In NH, it's Clinton +5.7 (Johnson 13.0/Stein 3.0).

In PA, it's Clinton +1.8 (Johnson 5.8/Stein 2.6).

In VA, it's Clinton +6.0 (Johnson 8.7/Stein 1.5).

In WI, it's Clinton +5.0 (Johnson 9.7/Stein 2.3).

In the other "Toss-Ups" Trump is ahead right now, but not by much, by just 2.2 on average. He is vulnerable to shifts toward the other candidates in these seven states. Johnson's average siphon from Trump in these states is already 8.2, while Stein might be contributing to Trump on average only 2.2 taken from Hillary in four, namely AZ, CO, IA and OH. 

In AZ, it's Trump winning +2.2 (Johnson 9.2/Stein 2.2).

In CO, it's Trump +0.5 (Johnson 9.0/Stein 3.3).

In GA, it's Trump +4.5 (Johnson 7.7).

In IA, it's Trump  +5.0 (Johnson 8.8/Stein 1.5).

In NV, it's Trump +0.6 (Johnson 8.4).

In NC, it's Trump +0.8 (Johnson 7.3).

In OH, it's Trump +2.0 (Johnson 6.8/Stein 1.8).

Trump is up against a free-trade, open borders ideology not just in Hillary Clinton, but within his own Republican Party, on which Gary Johnson is capitalizing under the rubric of "freedom". Trump ought to be pointing out to his patriotic followers that the libertarians are not on their side but on the side of the elites running the establishment, which means they are on Hillary's side, and keep emphasizing that he has the back of those who are Americans and love Americans.

Sean Hannity at 10 pm takes first place in September for first time over all rivals at FOX

Good news for Hannity, good sign for Trump.

Story here.

Publius Decius Mus rightly mocks Mark Levin's convention of the states

Not in so many words, but he does nevertheless, here:

"[I]n the federally consolidated super-state, what good do state legislatures do anyway? Does Voegeli or doesn’t he agree with me that federal and administrative state control will become more consolidated rather than less in Clinton II? We could have every statehouse in the nation, and everything we try to do (which, once again, is: not much) would just be overridden by judges and bureaucrats."

It was amusing to hear Mark Levin play an Antonin Scalia audio this evening, in which Scalia ridiculed the parchment barrier of The Bill of Rights, which Levin's grand scheme is to increase the length of with his manifold "liberty amendments". Does Levin even listen to Scalia, or just grovel at his feet?

Scalia clearly expressed in the audio that the separation of powers was key to our liberties, not the Bill of Rights.

Yet, yet, neither Scalia, nor Levin, nor Publius Decius Mus for that matter recognize that it was Abraham Lincoln, their hero!, who destroyed the separation of powers and arrogated all the power to the executive, the very heart and soul of the once and future "federal and administrative state".

That Lincoln did so over slavery was simply the pretext.

Hello Barack Obama. Hello Black Lives Matter. Hello . . . communism.