The New York Times publishes some of Donald Trump's tax records and says he may have avoided paying taxes for 18 years based on his loss amount for 1995.

Alec Baldwin plays the Thumper tonight on Saturday Night Live. [More...]

Through El Chapo's lawyer, his sons have denied the allegation they had anything to do with the attack on the military. The Mexican defense department says the man in the ambulance with the false name was indeed El Chapo's brother, Guano.

The Mexican media is rushing to judgment and claiming the sons of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman are responsible for killing a convoy of military persons who were taking a wounded man to the hospital following a shooting.

At a press conference, officials said :

The commander [Alfonso Duarte] said that the first attack was in the .....the municipality of Badiraguato, where monitoring the surveillance and combating drug trafficking, the military found a wounded man, identified as Julio Oscar Ortiz Vega, whom the military personnel led to the municipal head later to be moved to the square of Culiacan for health care.

[More...]

Is anyone not sick of hearing about Donald Trump?

There's a new report by the Inspector General finding the DEA misused money for informants. It paid informants $237 million between 2011 and 2015.

We found that the DEA did not adequately oversee payments to its sources, which exposes the DEA to an unacceptably increased potential for fraud, waste and abuse, particularly given the frequency with which DEA offices utilize and pay confidential sources,” the inspector general’s office wrote

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

USA today made its first presidential endorsement in its 34 year history. It declares Donald Trump unfit to be President:

We haven't made a voting recommendation in 34 years. For this election, we made an exception

..This year, the choice isn’t between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences. This year, one of the candidates — Republican nominee Donald Trump — is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency.

While this and other mainstream media opposition may not matter to his under-informed fans, that's besides the point if they don't show up to vote. Trump doesn't have a cohesive get out the vote effort. Hillary has been working on hers for 8 years. He doesn't even seem to have much of a campaign. [More...]

It's never my birthday until I see a chocolate cupcake with icing and a cherry on top!

I'm grateful to be younger than the candidates running for President.

Birthday wishes (and donations for a birthday drink, paypal here) are welcome.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Rudy Giuliani, the most contemptible Republican ever (ok, maybe along with Dick Cheney), wants Trump to bring up Monica Lewinsky in the next debate. Seriously? Rudy, whose alleged extra-marital dalliance with his ex communications director Cristyne Lategano-Nicholas was cited by his wife Donna Hanover as a principal reason for their divorce?

Devastating to Trump. On Twitter last night, Alicia Machado thanked Hillary for the shout-out during the debate. Here's Alicia telling her story in May, 2016:

Another interview the same month is here. [More....]

It's gonna be huuuuge.

Great timing for the Tecate beer wall ad mocking Donald Trump's border wall.

Update: The audience has had enough. They are laughing at Trump and cheering Hillary. She even got his sexism in. What a dismal performance by Trump, even worse than I expected. He even blew his attempt to criticize her stamina. No closing statements. The media will have a field day with how unpresidential Trump was. Hillary didn't have a single mis-step.

Updater: PINOCCHIO! Trump lies and says he never supported the war in Iraq. Here's Trump in 2002.

Update: The quiet audience laughed out loud when he said he has a better temperment than Hillary. He says he has a winning temperment.

Go Hillary! She blows off Trump's insult to her temperment and changes the topic back to what the question was. And then gives an example of a Trump statement on Iran that shows he's not fit to be Commander in Chief. Hillary does a good imitation of Trump's cavalier attitude. " A man who gets provoked by a Tweet" should not have his hand anywhere near the nuclear codes. [More...]

As promised, the New York Times editorial board today released its opinion on why Donald Trump doesn't deserve to be President.

The ending is the best part. It sums up the qualities Trump exudes:

....bluster, savage mockery of those who challenge him, degrading comments about women, mendacity, crude generalizations about nations and religions. Our presidents are role models for generations of our children. Is this the example we want for them?

Back to the beginning:

I'm really tired of seeing the media proclaim Trump and Clinton have the lowest favorability ratings in modern history. So what?

If there's a story here, it's that Trump's favorability rating is 9 points lower than Hillary's, according to the latest Gallup poll. And his unfavorability rating is 8 points higher than Hillary's.

Sept 19-25, 2016 and Sept 17 to 24, 2016:

• Trump Favorable 32
• Trump Unfavorable 63
• Hillary Favorable 41
• Hillary Unfavorable 55

Also, Trump favorability is down a point while Hillary's is up a point.

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Do candidates, like athletes, use music to psych themselves up for the big event? I bet they do.

So what would Hillary be listening to? (I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is tone deaf and listens to nothing but his own voice, so I'm not including him.)

Since she's no millenial, I think the music on her smart phone is going to reflect her generation.

I'm picking three songs for her: One to pump her up, one to watch on her phone and inspire her right before she's introduced, and one to listen to during the break when she thinks she can't stand another moment of being on stage with Donald Trump.

I'd like to hear your choices in comments. My picks below.