Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! is one of the finest reporters around, covering stories that the mainstream ignores, especially those involving the marginalized sectors of the country. She recently covered the protests by American Indians against an oil pipeline that was being built in North Dakota that tribes who live in the area say threatens their water supply and cultural heritage. The security firm hired by the Dakota Access pipeline company used dogs and pepper spray to attack the protestors and the video that Goodman’s crew shot went viral.
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As the bad news for Donald Trump keeps coming (one of the latest is the way he used to walk unannounced into the dressing room backstage of the Miss USA contest that he ran in order to see all the contestants naked), some people are suggesting that his running mate Mike Pence should be at the top of the ticket, especially since he has on occasion tried to distance himself from some of Trump’s more incendiary remarks.
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For a change, I will actually post something about policies in this election and not about all the other sensational things in this wild and crazy election. The Tax Policy Center has analyzed the Clinton and Trump tax proposals and according to them, for Trump’s plan:

Federal revenues would fall by $6.2 trillion over the first decade before accounting for added interest costs. Including interest costs, the federal debt would rise by $7.2 trillion over the first decade and by $20.9 trillion by 2036

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As has become increasingly clear, one business strategy of Donald Trump is to persuade bankers to lend him money for his projects and then pass on the enormous debt to investors while using the loss to write off his own taxes. I will not even pretend to understand how this is done, even with the expert help of tax reporter David Cay Johnston.
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Formerly solid Republican supporters like conservative intellectuals, wealthy people, big business, and elected Republicans at the local and national levels are abandoning Donald Trump in increasing numbers. One thing that has been interesting is that this split has revealed where different groups draw the line in deciding that Trump has gone too far.
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It is clear that the floodgates have opened with story after story coming out about Donald Trump kissing, groping, and assaulting women. The latest outpouring seems to have been triggered by the debate on Sunday where Trump was pressed by moderator Anderson Cooper on whether the things he said on the infamous tape were just words or whether he had actually done them. After evading the question twice, on the third attempt, he denied the actions.
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The release by WikiLeaks of the emails of leading figures within the Democratic party establishment and the Hillary Clinton campaign (pretty much the same thing) has provoked howls of outrage by Democratic supporters who see in the timing of these releases, just before the election, a sinister plot. They have darkly insinuated that the documents are fake or that WikiLeaks and its head Julian Assange are tools of Russian president Vladimir Putin who is using them to damage Clinton and thus help his good buddy Donald Trump. Some Democratic partisans have even challenged the authenticity o the emails, even though that was put to rest when Trump raised them in last Sunday’s debate and Clinton did not challenge the contents.
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