In an effort to take out frontrunner Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidates have pelted Trump with criticism over his multiple trips to federal bankruptcy court. That criticism was on full display in CNN's Republican debate Sept. 16. Most notably, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina criticized Trump's history of bankruptcies in his businesses.

"You know, there are a lot of us Americans who believe that we are going to have trouble someday paying back the interest on our debt because politicians have run up mountains of debt using other people's money," Fiorina said. "That is in fact precisely the way you ran your casinos. You ran up mountains of debt, as well as losses, using other people's money, and you were forced to file for bankruptcy not once, not twice, four times."

Trump doesn't deny that four of his businesses have filed for bankruptcy. He argues, however, that filing for bankruptcy is a common business decision, and he was smart to make the moves when he did.

"Hundreds of companies" have filed for bankruptcy, Trump said earlier in the debate. "I used the law four times and made a tremendous thing. I'm in business. I did a very good job."

Trump's four bankruptcies were Chapter 11 reorganizations (named for its location in federal bankruptcy code), which are designed to restructure businesses without shutting them down completely. The purpose is to "save" the business, as opposed to other forms of bankruptcy which would liquidate the company, said Michael Venditto, a partner at the ReedSmith law firm who has extensive experience with Chapter 11.

Because they keep coming up, we decided to outline Trump's four bankruptcies. We also talked to some finance experts, who told us Trump is correct that Chapter 11 reorganization is not always the result of bad business decisions.

The first bankruptcy associated with Trump was perhaps the most significant in terms of his personal finances, according to news reports at the time. He funded the construction of the $1 billion Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, which opened in 1990. By 1991, the casino was nearly $3 billion in debt, while Trump had racked up nearly $900 million in personal liabilities, so the business decided to file for Chapter 11 reorganization, according to the New York Times. As a result, Trump gave up half his personal stake in the casino and sold his yacht and airline, according to the Washington Post.

Trump acquired the Plaza Hotel in New York for $390 million in 1988. By 1992, the hotel had accumulated $550 million in debt. As a result of the bankruptcy, in exchange for easier terms on which to pay off the debts, Trump relinquished a 49 percent stake in the Plaza to a total of six lenders, according to ABC News. Trump remained the hotel's CEO, but it was merely a gesture -- he didn't earn a salary and had no say in the hotel's day-to-day operations, according to the New York Times.

Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts filed for bankruptcy again in 2004 when his casinos -- including the Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Marina and Trump Plaza casinos in Atlantic City and a riverboat casino in Indiana -- had accrued an estimated $1.8 billion in debt, according to the Associated Press. Trump agreed to reduce his share in the company from 47 to 27 percent in a restructuring plan, but he was still the company's largest single shareholder and remained in charge of its operations. Trump told the Associated Press at the time that the company represented less than 1 percent of his net worth.

Trump Entertainment Resorts -- formerly Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts -- was hit hard by the 2008 economic recession and missed a $53.1 million bond interest payment in December 2008, according to ABC News. After debating with the company's board of directors, Trump resigned as the company's chairman and had his corporate stake in the company reduced to 10 percent. The company continued to use Trump's name in licensing.

So four Trump companies filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. Is that as big a deal as Fiorina says?

While it would be better to avoid a situation where Chapter 11 reorganization is necessary, filing for bankruptcy can be a "sound business decision" when the company is facing serious financial problems, Venditto said. It's better than the business shutting down completely.

"However, the source of the financial problems varies from case to case," he said. "Sometimes it is the result of circumstances beyond the control of the business. Sometime it caused by poor judgment. More frequently, it is a combination."

Trump's four bankruptcies all happened within the past 25 years. That's a lot, said Stephen Lubben, a leading expert in corporate finance and professor at Seton Hall School of Law. But to be fair, the gaming industry has been struggling the past few years, he added, and three out of four of Trump's bankruptcies were tied to casinos.

It's not fair to put all the blame on Trump for the four bankruptcies because he's acting as any investor would. Investors often own many non-integrated companies, which they fund by taking on debt, and some of them inevitably file for bankruptcy, said Adam Levitin, a law professor at Georgetown University.

He added that people typically wouldn't personally blame former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney or investor Warren Buffett for individual failures within their investment companies, Bain Capital and Berkshire Hathaway, respectively.

"The only difference is that Trump puts his name on his companies, which means people associate them with him, but he's not at all the leader in the bankruptcy space," Levitan said. "These bankruptcies were not defining moments for Trump and shouldn't color our view of him."

Fiorina said Trump was "forced to file for bankruptcy not once, not twice, four times."

While it is accurate that Trump filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy four times, Fiorina's statement doesn't tell the whole story. In context, Fiorina's phrasing suggests Trump was personally responsible for the failures of these businesses, but in reality, much was out of Trump's control -- such as a struggling casino industry. But Trump is certainly not blameless.

PolitiFact Is Guilty of Fact Abuse

You’ve got to give the leftist reporters in our mainstream media credit. They never tire of trying to reassure the public that their biased stories are without bias. The latest, and arguably most effective, innovation lets the MSM set the terms of acceptable debate by defining what is true and what is false in political discussions.

This is accomplished through the use of “fact checkers” that are marketed to the public as totally unbiased, scientific data crunchers that are only interested in truth, justice, and The American Way. The reality is these “fact checkers” have their thumb on the scale of truth and actively tilt the discussion toward the left by disparaging conservative issues and elected officials.

PolitiFact is owned by the Tampa Bay Times and modestly describes its mission as “fact-checking U.S. politics” and boasts that it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize — a giant pat-on-the-back the MSM gives itself.

Bryan White, who operates the blog PolitiFactBias, did an analysis and according to Human Events found “PolitiFact is not that honest fact-checker. Once widely regarded as a unique, rigorous, and reasonably independent investigator of political claims, PolitiFact now declares conservatives wrong three times more often than liberals. More pointedly, the journalism organization concludes that conservatives have flat-out lied nine times more often than liberals.

In the three years since the end of the partnership with CQ, PolitiFact has found a total of 323 conservative claims to be untrue, with 119 of those getting Pants on Fire.

In the same time, it’s found 105 liberal claims to be untrue, with just 13 deemed Pants on Fire, according to White’s tally.”

PolitiFact tips the scales leftward in two important ways: first by what the fact twisters choose to study and two, by how it interprets what the individual said, up to and including putting words in their mouths.

Special:

Nothing escapes the gimlet eye of these fact twisters, including humor.

Breitbart News provides the latest example of fact abuse: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, recently told a joke that went “Here, we have Thanksgiving, we have Christmas, we have the 4th of July. Every year in Iran, they celebrate death to America day, which is the anniversary of Iran in the 1970s taking Americans hostage.”

If not exactly humor this Cruz statement certainly qualifies as hyperbole in the service of making a larger point. But PolitiFact ignored the larger point, i.e., it’s foolish to trust an enemy in negotiations, and instead concentrated on the holiday festivities.

According to Breitbart, “In order to come to the conclusion that Cruz’s morally clarifying piece of humor was a lie, PolitiFact scoured news archives and hassled no less than five “academic authorities” to see if there is an official “Death to America” holiday in Iran.” And in fact a search discovered, “that not a single use of humor by any Democrat has ever been fact-checked by PolitiFact, much less rated as “mostly false.”

So what PolitiFact chose to analyze and how they analyzed it shows obvious bias. The lesson from this for conservatives is during the 2016 presidential campaign it pays not to trust the MSM or the MSM’s pet fact checkers.

Breaking News at Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Reagan/PolitiFact-Fact-Checkers-Bias/2015/03/20/id/631565/#ixzz406RppkWB

Re: “Back then..Trump ran in two primaries and pulled out..He DID NOT RUN actually RUN for the presidency...He has run in TWO primaries so far in 2016 and will NOT pull out and will run in the all rest.”

So, I should believe he is running now...because...you can predict the future?

Two can play that game...

I predict Trump will not get more than 35% of the vote in any Republican Primary or Caucus after New Hampshire.

If Trump is the Republican nominee, he will lose the general election by more than 10%.

If Trump is a Third Party candidate, he will lose the general election by more than 15%.

So, I should believe he is running now...because...you can predict the future?

Two can play that game...

I predict Trump will not get more than 35% of the vote in any Republican Primary or Caucus after New Hampshire.

If Trump is the Republican nominee, he will lose the general election by more than 10%.

If Trump is a Third Party candidate, he will lose the general election by more than 15%.

I'm beginning to realize the "rightness disease" has undoubtedly overtaken that tiny brain in your pointed little head.

Trump will be our NEXT President.

You have ALREADY predicted he won't.

YOU ARE WRONG!

I'm done with you. Next case!

Re: “I’m done with you. Next case! “

Sorry, Doc, the next case has already arrived. This afternoon, on Drudge.

Trump says the RNC broke its promise not to take sides in the nomination, therefore, he is no longer obliged to honor his promise that he will not run as a Third Party candidate.

Do you understand what has happened?

Many South Carolina voters were rattled by Trump’s angry and coarse debate performance.

In the three South Carolina polls taken since the Debate, Trump has moved down from 42% to 37% to 33%.

He’s already planning his exit from the Republican Party.

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