Bracket Creep: Donald Trump told interviewer George Stephanopoulos on ABC that he doesn’t think the public has a right to see his tax returns

Asked his effective tax rate, Trump said, “It’s none of your business. You’ll see it when I release, but I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible.”

Trump says he will release his tax returns only when an IRS audit is completed, which may not happen before the fall election.

This issue was a killer for Mitt Romney, whose tax returns revealed that the multi-millionaire investor paid taxes at a lower rate than most Americans.

A question about taxes was the prompt for President Richard Nixon’s famous statement, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook.” Nixon’s tax returns turned out to be basically fraudulent and he had to pay $476,000 in back taxes.

John Miller for President : The Washington Post reports that from the 1970s into the 90s Donald Trump used to called reporters identifying himself as a public relations man named either “John Miller” or “John Barron.” There are audio recordings of the conversations.

The man who identified himself as Miller explained why Trump, as he was divorcing his wife Ivanka, was dumping the beautiful blonde Marla Maples to pursue Italian actress and model Carla Bruni. “He really didn’t want to make a commitment,” Miller said. “He’s coming out of a marriage, and he’s starting to do tremendously well financially.” Hmm. Sound like Trump? Here’s more. “He gets called by everybody. He gets called by everybody, in terms of women.”

Trump ended up marrying Maples, having a daughter with her, and divorcing. He has a son named Barron with his current wife Melania. There’s no evidence that public relations men named John Miller or John Barron ever worked for Trump, or even existed.

Death Be Not Proud: In a big victory for opponents of the death penalty, Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer imposed new controls on its drugs to prevent them from being used in lethal injections, shutting off the last remaining source of drugs used for executions in the US. Twenty other US and European companies had already refused to supply drugs used in executions for moral or legal reasons.

Rather than confronting the death penalty itself, opponents have attacked the means of executions instead. In recent years they have won court cases ruling that lethal drugs are not as pain-free and humane as portrayed. That leaves death penalty states with only the cruder methods of the electric chair, hanging, and a firing squad.

Bathroom Battle: Leaders in conservative states have resolved to fight yesterday’s directive from the Obama administration to open public school bathrooms to transgender students. “This is the most outrageous example yet of the Obama administration forcing its liberal agenda on states that roundly reject it,” said Mississippi Republican Gov. Phil Bryant.

The Obit Page: Susannah Mushatt Jones, a woman who ate bacon, grits, and eggs all her life and was credited with being the world’s oldest person whose life spanned three centuries, has died at age 116. She was believed to be the last living person born before 1900. Jones came from the horse and buggy era to live through two world wars, the exploration of space and the dawn of the computer.

Anonymous: Word sleuths are on the trail to learn the identity of an anonymous retiring Democratic congressman who has written a slim book called “The Confessions of Congressman X,” slamming the ways of Washington. He writes, “Like most of my colleagues, I promise my constituents a lot of stuff I can never deliver. But what the hell? It makes them happy hearing it . . . My main job is to keep my job.”

Congressman X describes the workings of congress as a casino. “We spend money we don’t have and blithely mortgage the future with a wink and a nod. Screw the next generation. It’s about getting credit now, lookin’ good for the upcoming election,” he says.

“X” reserves special contempt for the people he serves. “Voters are incredibly ignorant. It’s far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification.”

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