Monday, October 03, 2016

Who leaked Trump's tax returns?


Bonddad first:

Here's the really important point:  The key to this news story is a single piece of information among literally thousands of numbers and individual data points.  Whoever leaked this information knew enough about taxes to know what to leak and no more.  

If I was going to make a guess: someone really close to Trump who was intimately familiar with Trump's finances and who also didn't have a professional code of confidentiality.

If You Only News initially suspected it was Trump's daughter, Tiffany.  Then they got a little more plausible with Hair Furor's ex, Marla MaplesJosh Marshall didn't offer any names but provided background, quasi-legal and personal, and No More Mister expanded on that.

It really doesn't matter who leaked them; Trump is over.  Finished.  Kaput.  Stop being afraid he's going to win.  He isn't.  He can't.  He has eliminated every single pathway to an Electoral College victory, almost all of them by his own hand.

The Russians are not going to hack the election.  (They are simply unable to do so.  This is Democratic propaganda.)  Women and Latin@s and squishy Democrats who only vote every four years will turn out in droves to vote against him.  Every voter living in a non-battleground state -- there are at least forty of them, and their number will increase as this election turns into a landslide for Clinton -- is hereby emancipated from the scare tactics of every Jackass from Obama on down to vote their principles in order to make sure Madam President gets the message: use the next four years to achieve real progress on the issues you say we can't, or else get primaried from the left and be a one-termer.

Clinton won't have an opponent so weak, so awful, and so self-destructive next time.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is anticipating a more reality-based debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence tomorrow night as it presents the best of the left of Texas from last week.


Off the Kuff looks at the sharp increase in voter registration numbers around the state.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos is thrilled to learn that Houston-area taco truck owners are registering voters: Houston taco trucks serve up Tex-Mex and voter activism.

Back to Ohio for PDiddie at Brains and Eggs, along with some words from Hillary Clinton about Sandernistas from behind closed doors, and a few voting provisos for those in Harris County.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is sick of Republicans siding with the rich and powerful over the health and well being of Texas citizens. Look to the Texas Legislature to be the great corrupt fixer.

Socratic Gadfly tackles the claim that third-party voters assert there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats, and finds it wanting.

Egberto Willies passes along the Annie's List endorsements of Democrats running for Harris County's DA, Kim Ogg, tax assessor/collector Ann Harris Bennett, and the Dallas County incumbent sheriff, Lupe Valdez.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston took note of the Harris County clerk's taunting of the Fifth Circuit's ruling on voter ID.

Texas Leftist feels encouraged about the Astrodome's long-term prospects after the Harris County commissioners voted to construct a two-level parking garage in the underground portion.

Neil at All People Have Value offered his artist's statement as public artist in Houston and America. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Grits for Breakfast asks what we should teach ninth-graders so that police won't shoot them, a subject John Oliver finds thoroughly depressing.

The Texas Election Law Blog writes about the travails of voting by mail.

The Houston Press catalogs Ken Paxton's obsession with LGBT issues.

Politifact Texas checked Hillary Clinton's statement linking tax cuts and the Great Recession of 2008, and found it 'mostly false'.

Popular Resistance profiles the Texas activists that fought KXL who are now girding up to stop the Trans-Pecos pipeline in West Texas.

Lone Star Ma focuses on the 13th of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Better Texas Blog calls for a renovation, not a complete teardown, of Texas' school finance system.

BOR interviews Stephanie Chiarello Noppenberg, the creator of the political satire variety show Over the Lege.

Eileen Smith watched the debate so you didn't have to.

And Space City Weather declares Texas' hurricane season (probably) over.