Marijuana legalization is leading in every state where it’s on the ballot this November
By Christopher Ingraham October 5 at 6:00 AM

Marijuana advocates are heading into the final weeks of the 2016 campaign with the wind at their backs as the latest polling shows legalization measures currently favored by voters in all five states where they're on the ballot.

This is something of a reversal from just a month ago, when the most recent polling had shown voters wary of legalization measures in Massachusetts and Arizona. But the margins of support aren't huge in any state, meaning that the contests could still swing either way.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/05/marijuana-legalization-is-leading-in-every-state-where-its-on-the-ballot-this-november/

Sanders Announces Bill to Close Tax Loopholes Used by Trump
Tuesday, October 4, 2016

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced Tuesday he would introduce legislation in the next session of Congress to fix our rigged tax system and close loopholes Donald Trump used to possibly avoid paying federal income taxes for nearly two decades.

“Special tax breaks and loopholes in a corrupt tax code enable billionaires and powerful corporations to avoid paying their fair share of taxes while sticking the burden on the middle class,” Sanders said. “It's time to create a tax system which is fair and which asks the wealthy and powerful to start paying their fair share of taxes.”

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-announces-bill-to-close-tax-loopholes-used-by-trump

How medical marijuana could help boomers get the most out of retirement
By Christopher Ingraham October 4 at 12:18 PM

States that passed medical marijuana laws saw a significant boost to older Americans' workforce participation, according to a new working paper from researchers at Johns Hopkins and Temple University. States with medical marijuana laws also saw improvements in overall health for older men, although the health effects for older women were more mixed.

Like many recent studies examining the effects of marijuana laws, this one compared what happened in medical marijuana states before and after the passage of medical pot provisions, and compared them to trajectories in similar states that did not implement medical marijuana. The data come from the Health and Retirement study, a long-running survey of the health and economic well-being of older American adults.

The study found that, among individuals age 50 and older, “passage of [a medical marijuana law] leads to a 9.4 percent increase in the probability of employment and a 4.6 percent to 4.9 percent increase in hours worked per week.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/04/how-medical-marijuana-could-help-boomers-get-the-most-out-of-retirement/

Clinton takes big lead over Trump in Pa.: F&M poll results
By Candy Woodall | cwoodall@pennlive.com October 04, 2016 at 5:55 AM, updated October 04, 2016 at 12:13 PM

Donald Trump is still reeling from his worst week of the presidential campaign, and it shows in the latest poll of Pennsylvania voters.

The Republican nominee is losing to Democrat Hillary Clinton by 9 points among likely voters and 12 points among registered voters, according to the Franklin & Marshall College Poll released Tuesday morning.

The poll was conducted during a stretch of days when Trump lost the first presidential debate, resurrected an old feud with the 1996 Miss Universe, went after the Clintons on infidelity and a New York Times report exposed a tax scandal.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/10/clinton_takes_double-digit_lea_1.html

Trump supporter's float in Indiana parade depicts Hillary Clinton in an electric chair
By Emily Cahn October 04, 2016

Violent rhetoric against presidential candidates has become a disturbing trend in the 2016 campaign.

But one man in an Indiana town took that rhetoric a step further over the weekend, creating a parade float that depicted Hillary Clinton in an electric chair, with Donald Trump sitting beside her ready to flip the switch, a local Fox affiliate in the Hoosier State reported.

Also included on the float was a grim reaper and an "Easter Island style head statue with a handwritten sign saying 'Obama' attached to it," the Fox affiliate reported.

https://mic.com/articles/155819/trump-supporter-s-float-in-indiana-parade-depicts-hillary-clinton-in-an-electric-chair

The Flint Water Crisis Has Now Spawned An Infectious Shigellosis Outbreak
BY: CHRIS ZOIS 10.04.16

For over a year, the Flint Water Crisis has plagued the people of the Michigan city, and some residents remain petrified of washing their hands. But new reports indicate the city could be susceptible to a new infectious bacterial disease, Shigellosis, because of these fears, as reported by CNN.

The water situation in the city is one that has consumed it for more than two years. High levels of lead were discovered in the local water supply in 2014, which caused people to develop rashes and even hair loss. Residents, who are still only using filtered or bottled water because of the lead in the water pipes, resorted to bathing less and stopped washing their hands. This anxiety towards using the water has created a new problem, for Shigellosis thrives when people don’t wash their hands.

Genesee County’s environmental health supervisor Jim Henry told CNN the panic of coming into contact with water is changing residents’ hygiene habits, with some going as far as using baby wipes instead of bathing...

http://uproxx.com/news/flint-water-crisis-new-outbreak/

Donald Trump: Terroristic Man-Toddler
Charles M. Blow OCT. 3, 2016

Donald Trump is a domestic terrorist; only his form of terror doesn’t boil down to blowing things up. He’s the 70-year-old toddler who knows nearly nothing, hurls insults, has simplistic solutions for complex problems and is quick to throw a tantrum. Also, in case you didn’t know it, this toddler is mean to girls and is a bit of a bigot.

It isn’t so much that he is a strict disciple of radical ideology, but rather that he is devoid of fixed principles, willing to do anything and everything to gain fame, fortune and power. He has an endless, consuming need for perpetual affirmation. This is a bully who just wants to be liked, a man-boy nursing a nagging internal emptiness.

He’s fickle and spoiled and rotten.

He shouldn’t be ushered into the White House; he should be laughed into hiding. His querulous nature shouldn’t be coddled; it should be crushed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/opinion/campaign-stops/donald-trump-terroristic-man-toddler.html?ref=opinion

Weekend Catch-Up: How Did Donald Trump Lose $916 Million?
KEVIN DRUMOCT. 3, 2016 1:08 AM

It seems likely, then, that Trump's gargantuan loss was basically an accounting fiction of some kind.

John Hempton, an Australian hedge fund manager and former expert on tax avoidance for the Australian Treasury, has a theory that Trump may have "parked" the debt from his bankruptcies with a dummy party offshore, where it was never collected but never officially forgiven. This would allow him to declare $916 million in losses even though he never truly lost anything.

What was the point of all this? Most likely, the Times speculates, it was used as a tax loss carry forward, which allowed Trump to declare zero income—and thus pay zero taxes—for as long as 18 years.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/10/weekend-catch-how-did-donald-trump-lose-916-million

"Undocumented immigrants pay $12 billion of taxes every single year."
María Teresa Kumar on Sunday, October 2nd, 2016 in an interview on "Meet the Press"

How much do undocumented immigrants pay in taxes?

By Linda Qiu on Sunday, October 2nd, 2016 at 5:12 p.m.

Donald Trump may not have paid federal income taxes for 20 years, but the undocumented immigrants he rails against certainly have, according to the head of a Latino civic engagement organization.

Maria Teresa Kumar, CEO and president of Voto Latino, said on NBC’s Meet the Press that "no one is surprised" by the New York Times report on Trump’s personal finances and pointed out Trump’s "hypocrisy."

"He keeps talking about undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants pay $12 billion of taxes every single year. They pay their taxes. They have skin in the game. He is not contributing to a system that he says he's going to go in and fix," Kumar said.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/oct/02/maria-teresa-kumar/how-much-do-undocumented-immigrants-pay-taxes/

Trump running out of time as controversies pile up
By Stephen Collinson, CNN Updated 8:30 AM ET, Mon October 3, 2016

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump's tax controversy and his self-destructive lack of discipline threaten to drain the Republican nominee of something he can't afford: time.

With 36 days remaining before Election Day, the real estate mogul's campaign is consumed with the fallout from a New York Times story published over the weekend that found Trump reported a $916 million loss in 1995. That loss could mean Trump went 18 years without paying federal income taxes.


"The reality is that we are in day six of the meltdown," Clinton supporter Neera Tanden said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "He had a terrible debate performance. Everybody sees that. He sees the state polls moving towards Hillary. Eleven state polls were out this week. She's beating him in every single one. He can't take that. And so this is the latest meltdown."


http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/03/politics/donald-trump-tax/