Another Trump managed hotel goes bankrupt this week.

[pcgeek11]

You're right, but only an ignorant fool would take a candidate that hasn't seriously.

Only an ignorant fool would accept Hillary with all of her lying, cheating and scandals...

 

[Sunburn74]

And you say this like Hillary has been open and transparent!
Bull Shit.

1) We have her taxes
2) I'm not aware of anything in particular she has been disproportionately secretive about.
3)If you're referring to the alleged email non-scandal, at least SOME emails were turned over. You can't say the same for any of the things Trump has said he will turn over (his taxes, melania's initial immigration documents, and a new leaf)

 

[pcgeek11]

1) We have her taxes
2) I'm not aware of anything in particular she has been disproportionately secretive about.
3)If you're referring to the alleged email non-scandal, at least SOME emails were turned over. You can't say the same for any of the things Trump has said he will turn over (his taxes, melania's initial immigration documents, and a new leaf)

OMG. Did you say that with a straight face.

 

[yllus]

I've been watching the progress of this building for a while - it's not too far from me, and I watched it get constructed while I worked on Bay Street somewhat south of it. It was a debacle from day one, and in a way that had to be purposeful - Trump's company is pretty clearly trying to kill it so they can buy the building for dirt cheap. Never deal with Trump.

That aside, the review for the feature restaurant in the hotel is magnificent and worth reprinting here for everyone's amusement. It exemplifies the sort who willingly buy into the Trump brand; his kind of people, if you will.

America at the Trump hotel: The food is amazing – but you shouldn’t eat here, ever

Greg, at the bar, is complaining about Toronto. You need to make at least a million a year to be comfortable in the city, he announces. Greg is in his upper 40s, by the look of it. He says he’s in finance. He’s brought the new girl from the office with him, a kind young thing named Julie who only recently moved to Toronto, who is maybe half his age. Julie’s drunk, but she isn’t stupid. Julie keeps rolling her eyes.

Greg has an ex and a kid, he says, but he “got off” paying just $200,000 in yearly support. And anyway, Greg adds, à propos of lord knows what, Greg makes $10-million annually. He’s the sort of patron you’d pay that much to never have to sit beside. At America, the tacky, new-money restaurant on the 31st floor of the Trump International Hotel and Tower Toronto, a guy like Greg no doubt feels right at home.

The female bar staff here wear the shortest uniforms I’ve ever seen in a restaurant, anywhere. (The male staff wear regular clothing.) One of them stops every few minutes to yank her skirt bottom down, so it more completely covers her. It’s not sexy. It’s degrading. Her face is blank and white.

America’s management calls its bottle-service staff “our team of stunning ‘America girls.’” Young, leering men and old leering suits pour into America in the evenings. If you build it, creeps will come.

There are bouncers, naturally: bored, wide faces chewing gum aggressively. The bathroom attendant in the men’s room has an old face. He doesn’t seem to speak a lot of English. He crinkles a handful of foil gum packets and palms a cologne bottle. He is competent, at least – he turns the taps on and off like a champion. I give him a five for my guilt, for his empty servitude. He is far more competent than many of the wait staff out in the dining room. There is servitude everywhere at America, but good service is remarkably hard to find.

America opened this summer, a replacement for Stock, a restaurant so unimaginative that its logo was an S with a fork through it, like a dollar sign. The only time I ate dinner at Stock, the crab legs came out frozen in their middles. The Trump people called in Charles Khabouth of Ink Entertainment (Patria, Byblos, La Société), as well as the Oliver & Bonacini group (Canoe, to name just one), to remake the place.

Their remake aims to be both a fine-dining restaurant and a resto-lounge, which is a fancy way of saying that it’s expensive and it turns into a nightclub some evenings, complete with the DJ and the velvet rope. As for the name, it’s meant to signify “confidence” and “boldness,” just like America – get it? Being there, one preopening press release promised, would be “Like eating your way across Route 66 by way of private jet.”

One evening, a Wednesday last month, we had ordered the $58 lobster Rockefeller and a $37 plate of milk-fed pork, as well as a bunch of appetizers. The appetizers arrived and we started in on them. And then roughly four minutes later the mains arrived, too. One of the servers kept referring to the lobster as “Henry” – as in, “How is Henry?” and, “Are you finished working on Henry?” I guess he thought it was funny. Henry became work as soon as that server gave it a name.

My tablemate ordered a bottle of wine, a $160 Savennières, but the server had never heard of it, and so my tablemate had to search the wine list to find it and to physically point it out. They kept the bottle at a waiter’s station, so we couldn’t refill our own wine glasses. Our glasses sat empty while we worked on Henry and the pork; I had to flag somebody down and explain to him what wine we were drinking to get a top-up. None of this should ever happen in a restaurant, let alone a restaurant where the average entrée price is $45.

The second time I ate at America, I tried to check in at the hostess stand when I arrived. The two women working there were having a conversation between themselves, not two feet in front of me. They didn’t look up. It was as if I didn’t exist. This continued for most of a minute. Awkward.

I told them the reservation name; they said the rest of my party hadn’t arrived yet. They showed me to the table.

I waited 20, then 30 minutes. My friends didn’t show. I couldn’t reach them. I apologized to my server and said, “I don’t know where my friends are.” Finally I ordered dinner for myself. Forty minutes after I’d arrived, my friends found me. They’d got to the restaurant before I had, and checked themselves in. The hostesses had told them they’d send me over when I arrived. They had been there all along, waiting at the bar. It was as if nobody had ever worked in a real restaurant before.

“Experience America, the grand indulgence – with commanding views of Toronto’s glittering skyline after dark, its lavish service, exquisite cocktails and decadent food,” says another bit of the restaurant’s publicity material. At least the “decadent food” part is true.

The food, overseen by the Oliver & Bonacini company’s Anthony Walsh and executed by the up-and-coming chef Bill Osborne, is the most incongruous thing about America. It’s inventive and smart, populist and beautiful to look at.

A dish as simple as a hams and pickles plate here is complex and beautifully turned out, stacked with good house sourdough, sweet, excellent corn bread, ox eye daisy capers, pickled milkweed pods and cattail hearts – all of them delicious – and terrific ham. The “foie gras flapjacks,” too, are so much better than that may sound. They’re big, tender buckwheat crepes soused with birch syrup and preserved peaches, peanut crumble and a thick slice of seared, fat-candied lobe.

The lobster Rockefeller – Henry – was worth its price and then some. One of the garnishes on the excellent plate of milk-fed pork was a buttery Granny Smith apple purée that tasted like tarte tatin, but was formed into trompe l’oeil apple slices, complete with the (fake) green peel and all. The $56 lamb rack was superb; the roasted scallop jambalaya a rare fail – oversalted. The desserts – fun and tasty. Mr. Osborne will go far. He’ll go far, far away from America, I hope.

The two women I was with that night rescued Julie from the bar and brought her to our table. Greg had left, she said; she’d told him to go to hell. She was slurring her words, enthusing about Stanley Kubrick, trying to explain the plot to Barry Lyndon.

Julie loved the desserts. They were the first real food she’d eaten that evening. We paid the bill and packed her into the elevator and put her in a taxi. She didn’t belong in America. And neither do you.

Our ratings

No stars: Not recommended.

 

[Sunburn74]

OMG. Did you say that with a straight face.

Yes. Key word is disproportionately. Feel free to replace the word with unexpectedly if you like.

 

[pcgeek11]

Yes. Key word is disproportionately. Feel free to replace the word with unexpectedly if you like.

She has covered more shit up than a cat with diarrehea in a sandbox.
Almost every word out of her mouth is a lie.

I guess you are entitled to be wrong if you want.

Shrug

 

[nickqt]

She has covered more shit up than a cat with diarrehea in a sandbox.
Almost every word out of her mouth is a lie.

I guess you are entitled to be wrong if you want.

Shrug

You're both hilarious and tragic.

 

[mikeymikec]

You're right, but only an ignorant fool would take a candidate that hasn't seriously.

As well as one who keeps using a debunked claim as justification for not releasing their tax returns.

 

[Sunburn74]

She has covered more shit up than a cat with diarrehea in a sandbox.
Almost every word out of her mouth is a lie.

I guess you are entitled to be wrong if you want.

Shrug

Why stop there at just a sandbox full of lies? Why not say she has covered up oceans worth of urine filled lies? Or maybe Olympian levels of filthy mistruths? Or that she killed bin laden, created the hole in the ozone, and stole away the loch Ness monster from the rest of us with her incredibly powerful lies alone? I mean if we're going to exaggerate and make incoherent arguments that have no factual basis and make one look like a lunatic, go big or go home right?

Its unbelievable he made it this far without releasing his tax returns. Even Jesus paid taxes and told us exactly how much he paid.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Its unbelievable he made it this far without releasing his tax returns. Even Jesus paid taxes and told us exactly how much he paid.

We can see the religitards of the day confronting Jesus: God in the flesh over taxes and without using the entire paragraph I've included his response because its relevant. Trump professes to be a Christian but behaves in a manner that is consistent with anything but and does whatever he can to not pay taxes yet his religious supporters continue to back him.
Matthew 22:21
They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Once again I will tell you how important it is to test the spirits to see exactly what it is that you're dealing with. 1 John 4:1-2 tells people to test the spirits because not all that are in the world, especially those hiding behind religion, are of God. Only a born again Christian filled with the Holy Spirit can confess that Jesus is God in the flesh which is the biblical test to know for sure whether or not you're dealing with a sheep or a wolf. I feel like anyone who hides behind religion to take advantage of people to prosper themselves or willingly and knowingly lead people astray should be strung up at the gallows but since Jesus is the righteous judge that will have to wait.

I reject all religion period!

 

[Victorian Gray]

She has covered more shit up than a cat with diarrehea in a sandbox.
Almost every word out of her mouth is a lie.

I guess you are entitled to be wrong if you want.

Shrug

This is what 25 years of propaganda can accomplish.

 

[pcgeek11]

You're both hilarious and tragic.

You are also entitled to be wrong.

 

[nickqt]

You are also entitled to be wrong.

And so are you, imbecile.

So are you.

Keep on keepin' on!

 

[pcgeek11]

Why stop there at just a sandbox full of lies? Why not say she has covered up oceans worth of urine filled lies? Or maybe Olympian levels of filthy mistruths? Or that she killed bin laden, created the hole in the ozone, and stole away the loch Ness monster from the rest of us with her incredibly powerful lies alone? I mean if we're going to exaggerate and make incoherent arguments that have no factual basis and make one look like a lunatic, go big or go home right?

Its unbelievable he made it this far without releasing his tax returns. Even Jesus paid taxes and told us exactly how much he paid.

Keep drinking the Kool Aid! Dumbass.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Keep drinking the Kool Aid! Dumbass.

oh, the...

 

[pcgeek11]

This is what 25 years of propaganda can accomplish.

You are also entitled to be wrong.

 

[pcgeek11]

And so are you, imbecile.

So are you.

Keep on keepin' on!

You are funny.

 

[Victorian Gray]

You are also entitled to be wrong.

Thanks. Unfortunately for you, I'm not. You are the end result of several decades of propaganda. It's rather sad.

 

[sdifox]

Clinton foundation should swoop in and buy it and rename it Not Trump Tower

 

[pcgeek11]

Thanks. Unfortunately for you, I'm not. You are the end result of several decades of propaganda. It's rather sad.

You are also welcome to your delusion...

 

[Victorian Gray]

You are also welcome to your delusion...

Wilful ignorance is a terrible thing. Truly sad.

 

[OutHouse]

How did this guy get this far without releasing his tax returns?

what difference does it make?

 

[Jhhnn]

what difference does it make?

To those not held in thrall by his astounding bullshit it matters a great deal. He admittedly pays no federal income tax so it wouldn't really matter in that regard. OTOH, his returns would undoubtedly reveal trade secrets he'd rather keep to himself. I'm personally curious how he lost $1B in other people's money & turned it into personal tax exemptions for years. That's truly awesome.

 

[Sunburn74]

what difference does it make?

Most people consider paying taxes an integral part of being an American. In fact, its probably THE most integral part of being an American [you've heard the idiom regarding death and taxes). Taxes (unfair ones) were a prominent reason this country was even founded. There is great diversity in this country but what binds us together is we all pay taxes. Taxes are a great unifier. Taxes are each person's way of showing they have skin in the game.

 

[pcgeek11]

Most people consider paying taxes an integral part of being an American. In fact, its probably THE most integral part of being an American [you've heard the idiom regarding death and taxes). Taxes (unfair ones) were a prominent reason this country was even founded. There is great diversity in this country but what binds us together is we all pay taxes. Taxes are a great unifier. Taxes are each person's way of showing they have skin in the game.

As long as he isn't doing anything illegal and is taking advantage of the deductions allowed why should anyone have a problem with it.

We should do away with all of the loopholes that are legally allowed. Oh nevermind I know why that will not happen. Because the politicians use those same loop holes.