Because He’s Smart: Tax records obtained by The NY Times show that Donald Trump claimed a loss so large on his 1995 tax returns that it could have allowed him to avoid paying federal income taxes for the following 18 years.

Trump’s 1995 returns for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut claimed $916 million in losses because of a business fiasco in Atlantic City, a failed attempt to create an airline, and his ill-fated purchase of New York’s Plaza Hotel.

The paper did not receive a copy of Trump’s federal return and it admits that its conclusion depends on actual numbers the they don’t know. The Times story says, “Although Mr. Trump’s taxable income in subsequent years is as yet unknown, a $916 million loss in 1995 would have been large enough to wipe out more than $50 million a year in taxable income over 18 years.”

Trump has refused to release more current tax returns because, he says, they are being audited.

The Trump campaign released a statement saying the paper obtained the documents illegally and, “Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required.”

It’s Political: Nearly a week after the first presidential debate, Trump is still whining that he won, despite all evidence to the contrary. He tweeted yesterday afternoon, “I won the debate if you decide without watching the totally one-sided ‘spin’ that followed. This despite the really bad microphone.”

Trump did have a bad microphone that delivered poor quality audio inside the Hofstra University auditorium, but he could be heard just fine on television in front of 82 million viewers as he took a beating from Hillary Clinton.

Clinton appears to have gotten a polling bump from the debate, although it’s not huge. The Real Clear Politics average of national polls has Clinton leading by 3.1 points. But there are some anomalies. NBC News and the McClatchy/Marist polls have Clinton up by seven points, but the LA Times/USC tracking poll has Trump by 5.

Permawar: The Syrian military dropped barrel bombs on the largest hospital on Aleppo’s east side for the second time this week. Both Syrian and Russian forces are pounding Aleppo to drive out rebel forces, and don’t seem to care whether they hit civilians. The United Nations says 400 people have been killed this week, many of them children.

Brexit: British Prime Minister Theresa May told the BBC she will trigger the British exit from the European Union by the end of next March.

Rumbles: A swarm of small earthquakes around the landlocked Salton Sea in Southern California has seismologists wondering whether the great San Andreas Fault is waking up to deliver “The Big One.” The fault in Southern California has not had a major quake since 1680, which, according to geological history, make it at least 100 years overdue.

Dying Laughter: In an essay published in the medical journal Neurology, comedian Robin Williams’ widow Susan Schneider details her husband’s deterioration with the mysterious Lewy body dementia, which had been misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s disease two months before his 2014 suicide.

“His left hand tremor was continuous now and he had a slow, shuffling gait,” Schneider writes. “He hated that he could not find the words he wanted in conversations. He would thrash at night and still had terrible insomnia. At times, he would find himself stuck in a frozen stance, unable to move, and frustrated when he came out of it.” She says, ““Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it.”

The Obit Page: Oscar Brand, the folksinger and radio personality who for more than 70 years was host of “Folksong Festival” on WNYC in New York, has died at age 96. He is believed to have been the longest-running host in radio history.

He knew everyone in folk music. Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan sat in. In the 1940s he introduced what were then known as “race records” — recording by black musicians — that were the precursors of rhythm and blues and ultimately, rock.

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