You really have to hand it to the Left. Their hatred for Trump is so profound, so pervasive, so thoroughly ingrained in their minds that there is no room for anything else.

Especially rational thought.

That was superbly demonstrated Tuesday evening when MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, just about the only host on that network with any ratings at all, over-hyped what turned out to be a massive nothing burger: Turns out that billionaire real estate magnate Donald J. Trump does pay income taxes, after all, just like most all other Americans.

A lot of income taxes. Or at least he did in 2005, the year that Maddow revealed on her program. (RELATED: The Trump tax revelation – that wasn’t)

According to Trump’s return, he paid in $38 million on approximately $150 million in income that year, for a tax rate of about 25 percent. Granted, the bulk of that payment – $31 million – was due to the Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT) which he wants to eliminate as part of his tax reform effort, but still, $38 million is no small amount of money.

By comparison, President and Michelle Obama, in 2015, had an income tax rate of 19 percent. And Mr. Socialism himself, Sen. Bernie Sanders, had an income tax rate of just 13 percent, according to his 2014 returns.

Trump even paid more than Comcast, the company that owns MSNBC, which paid 24 percent in 2014.

So while Trump spent the better part of his presidential campaign refusing to release his tax returns, allegedly because they were being audited – something the IRS said he could do regardless of any audit – it turns out that he is a productive, income tax-paying citizen of the republic after all.

And we’ve got the perpetually angry Left to thank for proving it to us, even if it was done in an awkward and anticlimactic manner.

Not that any of this mattered a hill of beans to most Americans anyway. The “standard” that all presidential contenders must show us their tax returns is a creation of the Left – a “gotcha” for rich Republican nominees, so Democratic contenders like Sanders and the Obama’s and even multi-millionaire Hillary Clinton can portray themselves as much simpler, humbler, less rich men and women “of the people.”

Tax returns contain a wealth of private information, and politicians know this, which is why they tailor their returns so they appear bland and non-disclosing. But Trump has never been a politician until now, so he’s never felt compelled to tailor his returns to look a certain way that is supposed to be acceptable for public consumption. (RELATED: Trump Tax Return “Bombshell” BACKFIRE… Trump Paid $38M In Taxes In 2005… MSNBC Becomes Comedy Central)

We learned this during the campaign, when he it was revealed that he took a huge $916 million loss in 1996, then used that loss to avoid paying income taxes – legally – for several years. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton brought it up during one of their debates. [Of course, Clinton and her philandering ex-president husband made their money the old-fashioned way – by selling political access to foreign governments on the notion that someday, as president, she would return on their investment. When that plan didn’t work out, the Clinton Foundation shut down its principle money-making – er, uh, donation-generating – division, the Clinton Global Initiative.]

What is truly amazing in all of this is that the Alt-Left still believes that something in Trump’s past will tie him to Mother Russia, the Iranian “elites” (whoever they are), or little green men from some faraway planet who helped him lie, cheat and steal his way into the White House. To make something of this episode – a man taking legal deductions while still paying tens of millions of dollars in income taxes – borders on insanity.

In fact, I think it actually qualifies as such.

As for Maddow, she’s now taking heat from all sides – including the Left-leaning media, many of whom are blaming her for over-hyping a nothing burger of a story while at the same time handing Trump a big, fat political victory, just when they were beginning to bash Republicans over their “controversial” Obamacare replacement legislation.

Trump continues to outsmart the Left at every turn, that is, when they’re not outsmarting themselves.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

DailyWire.com

USAToday.com

TheGatewayPundit.com

TheNationalSentinel.com