Bonus Tweet of the Day

TRUMP PAID $750 IN FEDERAL TAXES IN 2016.

Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.


The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.

The New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office. It does not include his personal returns for 2018 or 2019. This article offers an overview of The Times’s findings; additional articles will be published in the coming weeks.




https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Appellate court halts Wisconsin ballot-counting extension

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Sunday temporarily halted a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s presidential election, a momentary victory for Republicans and President Donald Trump in the key presidential battleground state.

As it stands, ballots will now be due by 8 p.m. on Election Day. A lower court judge had sided with Democrats and their allies to extend the deadline until Nov. 9. Democrats sought more time as a way to help deal with an expected historic high number of absentee ballots.

The Democratic National Committee, the state Democratic Party and allied groups including the League of Women Voters sued to extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots after the April presidential primary saw long lines, fewer polling places, a shortage of workers and thousands of ballots mailed days after the election.

U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled Sept. 21 that ballots that arrive up to six days after Election Day will count as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. Sunday’s action puts Conley’s order on hold until the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals or U.S. Supreme Court issues any further action.

No further details were immediately posted by the appeals court.

State election officials anticipate as many as 2 million people will cast absentee ballots to avoid catching the coronavirus at the polls. That would be three times more absentee ballots than any other previous election and could overwhelm both election officials and the postal service, Conley wrote. If the decision had stood it could have delayed knowing the winner of Wisconsin for days.

The Republican National Committee, the state GOP and Wisconsin’s Republican legislators argued that current absentee voting rules be left in place, saying people have plenty of time to obtain and return their ballots.


https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-wisconsin-elections-us-supreme-court-courts-9f58fae97f3296c1a318f9f1082cf198?utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP

Ohio Democrats dominating absentee ballot requests

A tsunami of Democrats seeking ballots through the mail in this pandemic-plagued presidential election year is upending the very dynamics of voting in Ohio.

The impact of this ground-shaking change shows up in two major ways:

• The outcome of the presidential race in the bellwether Buckeye State appears even more unpredictable than usual.

• Ohio could be among the states where election fraud is alleged simply because the leader in the presidential vote could shift dramatically on election night and possibly shift back a week-and-a-half later.

Before COVID-19 hit, more Ohio Republicans than Democrats voted by mail, generally speaking. Democrats favored voting early in person at their county elections board, or going to the polls Election Day.

But in 2020, Democrats are far outdistancing GOP voters in requesting absentee ballots.

For example, at this point in the 2016 election, Stark County Democrats had asked for 6,000 mail ballots, compared with nearly 10,000 for Republicans.

This year, the Canton-area Democrats have sought more than 19,000, the Republicans fewer than 12,000.

Democratic ballot requests have more than tripled in Hamilton County as well, leaping from fewer than 17,000 four years ago to about 51,000 in 2020. Republicans have gone from about 16,000 to nearly 23,000.



https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/27/ohio-democrats-dominating-mail-ballots-election-night-angst-ahead-as-trump-may-not-accept-results/3525808001/

AL-SEN: Doug Jones has decided to go down swinging.

AK-AL: National Republicans are adding money to defend Don Young

Tweet of the Day

FL-26: Mucarsel-Powell calls for FBI investigation into Spanish-language disinformation

Miami Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell wants the FBI to investigate Spanish-language disinformation on social media and traditional media outlets after a South Florida radio station, Radio Caracol, played a 16-minute racist rant, and el Nuevo Herald distributed an insert containing racist and anti-Semitic writings inside its print edition for eight months.

Herald leadership apologized for the insert from LIBRE, a Spanish-language newspaper, ended the company’s relationship with LIBRE and pledged to investigate how the paper’s objectionable content was not reviewed before it was sent to readers.

In a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray, Mucarsel-Powell and Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro requested an immediate investigation into the origins of disinformation that typically spreads on social media but has also increasingly permeated mass media in South Florida.

“As we rapidly approach Election Day, Latino circles in South Florida have witnessed a surge in posts containing false or misleading information on social media,” Mucarsel-Powell and Castro wrote in a letter to Wray. “As the FBI works to secure our elections, we urge you to keep the Latino community in mind and consider efforts of foreign actors to spread disinformation and sow doubt in our election systems among Latinos, especially in South Florida.”

Their letter also singles out Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram as sources of disinformation for Latino voters. In 2016, Russian intelligence actors used social media to organize rallies and events promoting then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, and the lawmakers are worried about ongoing disinformation efforts with Election Day less than six weeks away.


“As we rapidly approach Election Day, Latino circles in South Florida have witnessed a surge in posts containing false or misleading information on social media,” Mucarsel-Powell and Castro wrote in a letter to Wray. “As the FBI works to secure our elections, we urge you to keep the Latino community in mind and consider efforts of foreign actors to spread disinformation and sow doubt in our election systems among Latinos, especially in South Florida.”

Their letter also singles out Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram as sources of disinformation for Latino voters. In 2016, Russian intelligence actors used social media to organize rallies and events promoting then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, and the lawmakers are worried about ongoing disinformation efforts with Election Day less than six weeks away.




https://www.miamiherald.com/article245945500.html#storylink=cpy

Florida Democrats hold narrowest lead in state history over Republican

TALLAHASSEE – Despite ambitious plans for a massive voter registration campaign, Florida Democrats instead now hold their narrowest lead in state history over Republicans — just days before the deadline to sign up new voters for the November presidential contest.

In the nation’s biggest electoral battleground, Florida Democrats hold a 183,596-voter lead over Republicans among registered voters, according to the latest report by the state Division of Elections.

The margin is the smallest ever in the modern history of Florida, where Democrats have continued to outnumber their rivals despite losing control of state government to Republicans 22 years ago.

Studies show the coronavirus pandemic has blunted registration efforts. Also in Florida, a recent federal court ruling is likely keeping hundreds of thousands of felons off the voter rolls, despite a constitutional amendment aimed at re-enfranchising these Floridians.



https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/politics/state/2020/09/25/pandemic-derailing-voter-registration-drives-florida-democrats-hold-narrow-edge-over-republicans/3495682001/

Biden to Dems: Focus on health care, not Supreme Court expansion

WILMINGTON, Del. — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wants voters to see Republicans’ push for a speedy Supreme Court confirmation as an end-run of Congress and the 2010 health care law.

In remarks on Sunday, the former vice president sidestepped any talk of expanding the court to counter conservative gains should he defeat President Donald Trump in November and Democrats regain a Senate majority. Biden called that scenario a distraction from the practical effects that Trump’s nominee, conservative federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett, could have if she succeeds the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“They see an opportunity to overturn the Affordable Care Act on their way out the door,” Biden said, speaking near his Delaware home. “The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court right now, as I speak, to eliminate the entire Affordable Care Act.”

Biden repeated his calls that the Senate delay confirmation proceedings until after the Nov. 3 election, moving ahead then if Trump wins another term or awaiting a nomination from Biden if the Democrat prevails.



https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/biden-calls-scotus-nomination-amy-coney-barrett-threat-to-health-care-obamacare-20200927.html