It has become a cliché that the real scandal in the US is not what is illegal but what is legal and this is amply demonstrated in the way that the real estate industry has obtained massive loopholes that benefit themselves and that Donald Trump has then exploited for his own benefit.

David Cay Johnston is a veteran reporter whose beats are economics and taxes. I have read a couple of his books and have linked to him frequently because he knows his stuff. As a bonus, he has also been following Trump’s career for several decades and this combination makes him the perfect person to explain what might be going on with Trump’s massive tax loss in 1995 that has been in the news this week.
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The report by the New York Times based on an anonymous source who gave them three pages of the 1995 joint tax return filing by Donald and his then-wife Marla Maples is both revealing and puzzling. You can see the document there and the main item that the media has focused on is that they declare a loss of $916 million.
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The new season began last night and they brought back Kate McKinnon to reprise her role as Hillary Clinton and had Alec Baldwin to play Donald Trump. Clinton copied the Gene Wilder entrance in Willy Wonka.

I do not have time (or the stomach) to follow the appearances and antics of Donald Trump’s surrogates on the various TV talk shows. I see news headlines of this or that surrogate tying themselves up in knots trying to explain away Trump’s statements or poor performance in the debate but I rarely follow up on them because I don’t think they matter. Who cares what surrogates say? Surrogates are useful for filling up the time on the 24/7 cable talk shows but for little else. Does anyone’s choice of who to vote for ever get swayed but what a surrogate says or does?
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She shifted her show to Wednesday so as to be able to comment on the debate and she was in good form.

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Seth Meyers had a hilarious take on last night’s debate. Given that his show goes on the air just a couple of hours after the debate ended, one has to admire him and his writers for so quickly coming up with such a polished and funny segment. That’s professionalism, baby.
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I have no idea if having celebrity support helps or hurts a candidate but this amusing ad tries to have it both ways, by encouraging people to register and vote against Donald Trump and at the same time mocking the whole idea that celebrities have any influence on what people do.

As a long time fan of Month Python, it was with great sadness that I read today that one of its members Terry Jones has been diagnosed with a rare form of dementia. Jones was one of the most versatile performers in the troupe, who had a broad range of interests, including even as a historian with a book on Chaucer.
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It is becoming increasingly clear that for a person who likes to boast so much about his wealth, Donald Trump is really cheap. He stiffs people to whom he owes money and uses his so-called charitable foundations to help himself, all the while boasting that he is a philanthropist but refusing to release his tax returns that would provide proof of his generosity.
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The interview show where guests have extremely awkward encounters with host Zach Galifianakis had on Hillary Clinton.