Courtesy of Pam Martens
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
New York Post Front Page, Monday, September 28, 2020
The United States is a country where Americans get to select their own news reality and, with that, their own reality of the gravest threats their country is facing. If you read the New York Times, you will clearly view the President of the United States, Donald Trump, as financially compromised and the gravest national security threat the nation faces. If you are a devotee of the Rupert Murdoch empire of right-wing news (Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Fox News) you are this morning lost in a world of empty stadiums and Trump charges of “fake news.”
Yesterday, the New York Times’ digital page broke the story that it had obtained from a source legally permitted to have the material, of more than two decades of Donald Trump’s tax returns. According to the Times, the returns show that in 2016, the year Trump was running for President, and in 2017, his first year as President, the man claiming to be a billionaire paid $750 in federal income taxes each year. That’s far less than most blue collar workers pay. (Last night the pro-Republican Drudge Report led with a bold red headline, asking: “The Fake Billionaire?”)
The Times also reports that Trump “paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years.” Heretofore, Trump has refused to provide any of his tax returns, saying he was under a “routine” audit. According to the New York Times, there was nothing “routine” about this audit. The Times explains that the audit centers on the stunning fact that Trump received a tax refund of $72.9 million. Yes, the Internal Revenue Service actually wrote out checks for $72.9 million in tax refunds and paid it to a self-described billionaire. It’s tough to say who looks worse in this reporting – the IRS or Donald Trump.
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