The Commentariat -- October 30, 2020

Late Morning Update:

From the New York Times' live election updates Friday: "Texas, a 2020 jump-ball state once considered a layup for Republicans, is shattering turnout records, with the number of early in-person and mail-in ballots now exceeding the total number of votes cast statewide in the 2016 election. Early-voting turnout has been enormous across the country, spurred by the coronavirus pandemic and one of the most bitterly contested presidential races in history, accelerating a years-in-the-making shift away from Election Day-only voting.... Though ... Senator Kamala Harris, is making a late swing through the state today, with visits to Houston, McAllen and Fort Worth, the Biden campaign has not put significant time or money into the state, arguing that it is a bad investment: Texas has multiple expensive media markets and is not an essential stop on Mr. Biden's path to 270 electoral votes." ~~~

~~~ Will Weissert & Paul Weber of the AP: "Texans have already cast more ballots in the presidential election than they did during all of 2016, an unprecedented surge of early voting in a state that was once the country's most reliably Republican, but may now be drifting toward battleground status.... Texas is the first state to hit the milestone. This year's numbers were aided by Democratic activists challenging in court for, and winning, the right to extend early voting by one week amid the coronavirus pandemic."

Mark Caputo & Matt Dixon of Politico: "Democrats are sounding the alarm about weak voter turnout rates in Florida's biggest county, Miami-Dade, where a strong Republican showing is endangering Joe Biden's chances in the nation's biggest swing state. No Democrat can win Florida without a huge turnout and big winning margins here to offset losses elsewhere in the state. But Democrats are turning out at lower rates than Republicans and at lower rates than at this point in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won by 29 percentage points here and still lost the state to Donald Trump.... Part of the problem, according to interviews with a dozen Democratic elected officials and operatives, is the Biden campaign's decision to discourage field staff from knocking on doors during the pandemic and its subsequent delay in greenlighting -- and funding -- a return to door-to-door canvassing."

Ron Suskind, in a long New York Times opinion piece, lays out some of the scenarios that Trump could instigate on November 4 if he doesn't rout Biden on November 3. What makes Suskind's projections all the more frightening is that they are not Suskind's ideas; they come from "senior officials, mainly in jobs that require Senate confirmation.... They are worried that the president could use the power of the government — the one they all serve or served within -- to keep himself in office or to create favorable terms for negotiating his exit from the White House." Mrs. McC: If you enjoy getting upset about speculations on what a madman might do, and in any case are beyond your control, this article is for you! OR, you might want to read it on the theory that forewarned is forearmed. The news that Trump is apparently cancelling his election-night victory party, which came out after Suskind wrote his piece, suggests to me that Trump indeed will be hunkered down with Jared, et al., in the White House, plotting his post-election strategy.

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: Donald Trump Jr.'s rant on Fox “News” Thursday night was "a particularly vivid illustration of the true nature of the case his father is making for reelection, and why Americans should reject it.... The careful reader will note that, in addition to being dismissive about death numbers, he claimed the media is not discussing the 'almost nothing' death levels precisely because it's such an admirable accomplishment.... Media figures are hyping coronavirus as part of a broader effort to deliberately discourage Trump rallies, he and [host Laura] Ingraham agreed.... The idea that elites -- whether we're talking about scientists, media figures, Democratic governors, what have you -- are deliberately discouraging conservatives from associating with one another, that they are enemies of conservative community, is a mainstay of Trumpist propaganda.... [Junior] is telling us exactly what reelecting his father stands for: the proposition that the current level of viral spread, sickness, misery and death constitute an acceptable trade-off for resuming total normalcy and reaping the benefits of doing so, as if that were even possible amid pandemic conditions in the first place."

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Election 2020

Michael McDonald of the University of Florida is keeping track of early voting -- both mail-in and in-person -- state-by-state and, where available, by party affiliation. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. As of Friday morning, more than 82 million people have voted.

The New York Times' live election updates Friday are here: "With Election Day less than 100 hours away, the Trump and Biden campaigns are fanning out across the crucial swing states that are likely to decide the race. The president will campaign in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin on Friday, while Joseph R. Biden Jr. heads for Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. ~~~

~~~ "President Trump has called off plans to appear at the Trump International Hotel [in Washington, D.C.,] on election night, and is likely to be at the White House instead, according to a person familiar with the plans."

Katie Glueck & Patricia Mazzai of the New York Times: "... the presidential battleground of Florida lured the two White House contenders to the same city [-- Tampa --] on Thursday, as President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. confronted some of their biggest political vulnerabilities in a state that is once again shaping up as the most elusive prize in next week's election. Mr. Trump returned to one of the tougher parts of the state for him four years ago, Tampa, one of the few areas he lost to Hillary Clinton in the vote-rich I-4 corridor.... Mr. Biden, in turn, faces an increasingly urgent need to build up his margins with Latinos, a diverse demographic in Florida that he has struggled to broadly galvanize so far. He made a blunt appeal to Cuban-Americans and Venezuelan-Americans, reminding them of human rights abuses in Havana and Caracas.... 'If we win Florida, it's game time, it's over, it's over,' Mr. Biden said as he swung through an outdoor campaign office in Fort Lauderdale earlier in the day."

Harry Stevens of the Washington Post: "Coronavirus cases are surging in every competitive state before Election Day, offering irrefutable evidence against President Trump's closing argument that the pandemic is nearly over and restrictions are no longer necessary. In the 13 states deemed competitive by the Cook Political Report, the weekly average of new cases reported daily has jumped 45 percent over the past two weeks.... 'The more the conversation is about the pandemic, the more that's going to mobilize Democratic turnout,' said [American University professor] Jan Leighley ..., an expert on voter turnout. Yet as the danger from the coronavirus mounts, so do concerns that voters in these crucial states may choose to avoid the polls rather than risk exposure. Others who contract the virus may remain in isolation as voting concludes."

Dr. Vin Gupta, speaking on MSNBC, noted that the states where it's hardest to avoid in-person voting are also the states where the lowest percentage of people wear masks.

Jeremy Merrill of The Markup: "The Markup analyzed every known Trump and Biden ad purchased between July 1, 2020, and Oct. 13, 2020, and found that Facebook has charged the presidential nominees wildly varying prices for their ads, with Biden paying, on average, nearly $2.50 more per 1,000 impressions than Trump. The difference was especially stark in advertisements aimed primarily at Facebook users in swing states in July and August, where Biden's campaign paid an average of $34.34 per 1,000 views, more than double Trump's average of $16.55.... [O]ver the course of tens of thousands of advertisements placed since July, Biden's higher average price means he has paid over $8 million more for his Facebook ads than he would have if he had been paying Trump's average price." --safari: Reminder that Facebook recently demanded NYU researchers cease scraping & analyzing this same data.

The New York Times' live election updates Thursday are here: "... Joseph R. Biden Jr. held a drive-in campaign event on the other side of Florida in the Democratic stronghold of Broward County, making an explicit pitch to Hispanic voters.... 'Cuba is no closer to freedom and democracy today than it was four years ago,' Mr. Biden, in shirt sleeves and sunglasses, said at Broward College's North Campus in Coconut Creek. 'In fact, there are more political prisoners and secret police are as brutal as ever, and Russia once again is a major presence in Havana.'... He also dismissed Mr. Trump's rally on the other side of the state as a 'super-spreader' event. ~~~

~~~ "Democrats braced on Thursday for what promised to be a rare good-news cycle for President Trump in the 2020 homestretch: the release of a report showing gross domestic product grew about 7 percent in the third quarter, or 30 percent on an annualized basis. But Mr. Trump, campaigning in Tampa just hours before Joseph R. Biden Jr. was set to appear at a rally across town, spent only about 10 minutes on the economy, calling the increase the 'biggest event in business' of the last 50 years. He quickly moved on, mocking Republicans who have repeatedly advised him to focus on his economic record.... Mr. Trump offered a rambling and confessional speech that began with vitriolic attacks on the media, a takedown of Miles Taylor, the former Homeland Security official who penned an anonymous anti-Trump op-ed in The New York Times, and then segued into his typical wisecracks about Mr. Biden's mental acuity. Mr. Trump predicted a massive 'red wave,' that would sweep him to victory.... 'Could you imagine losing to this guy?' he asked about Mr. Biden." ~~~

~~~ Neither Cold Nor Rain. But Wind. Jordan Williams of the Hill: "Nearly a dozen attendees at President Trump's rally in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday were sent to the hospital after waiting for hours in the steamy heat. The incident follows a similar weather-related occurrence at the president's rally in Omaha, Neb., on Tuesday evening, where hundreds of attendees were left waiting in the freezing cold after shuttle buses taking attendees to the rally were unable to return. At least seven people were reportedly hospitalized and 30 were treated on site after waiting in the cold weather. The Trump campaign has postponed a rally scheduled to take place in Fayetteville, N.C., on Thursday evening to Monday due to a wind advisory." Mrs. McC: Some might think the Fayetteville cancellation suggests Trump does care about his supporters, after all. I think not.

Toluse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post: "Trailing in the polls and with little time left to change the trajectory or closing themes of the presidential race, President Trump has spent the final days of the campaign complaining that the coronavirus crisis is getting too much coverage -- and openly musing about losing. Trump has publicly lamented about what a loss would mean, spoke longingly of riding off into the sunset and made unsubstantiated claims that voter fraud could cost him the election. He has sarcastically threatened to fire state officials if he doesn't win and excoriated his rival Joe Biden as someone it would be particularly embarrassing to lose to.... His unscripted remarks bemoaning a potential loss -- and preemptively explaining why he might suffer one -- offer a window into his mind-set as he barnstorms the country in an attempt to keep himself from becoming the one thing he so derisively despises: a loser."

Paul Krugman of the New York Times turns to George Orwell's essay "Looking Back on the Spanish War" to evaluate Donald Trump's lies: "What Trump has been revealing, more clearly than ever before, is that he has a totalitarian mind-set.... He doesn't accept that there is such a thing as objective truth. There are things he wants to believe, and so he does; there are other things he doesn't want to believe, so he doesn't. What's scary about all this isn't just the possibility that Trump may yet win -- or steal -- a second term. It's the fact that almost his entire party, and tens of millions of voters, seem perfectly willing to follow him into the abyss. This strategy may or may not work; this year it probably won't. But either way, it will poison America's political life for many years to come." Orwell's essay is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I remain of the school that holds that Trump is merely a grotesque extension of the political party of lies. Because Republican goals are so self-serving & anti-democratic, Republicans have to lie in order to appeal to the broader public. This has been true for decades. Trump is merely a big, bumptious buffoon of a caricature of the GOP politician. Surprisingly, Republicans don't seem aware that Trump, for the moment, has exposed their scam. Luckily for them, voters have no long-term memory, and the next, smoother charlatan who comes along will turn their fat heads.

Joseph Marks of the Washington Post: "The Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity division is mounting the largest operation to secure a U.S. election, aiming to prevent a repeat of Russia's 2016 interference and to ward off new threats posed by Iran and China. On Election Day, DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will launch a 24/7 virtual war room, to which election officials across the nation can dial in at any time to share notes about suspicious activity and work together to respond. The agency will also pass along classified information from intelligence agencies about efforts they detect from adversaries seeking to undermine the election and advise states on how to protect against such attacks."

Florida. Andrew Pantazi of the Florida Times-Union: "A local judge and head of Duval County's [Jacksonville] vote-counting board has donated repeatedly to President Trump's re-election campaign and other Republican efforts, and his home is covered in signs supporting Trump, despite rules requiring judges like him refrain from donations or public support. Duval County senior Judge Brent Shorehas served as chairman of the canvassing board because of his role as a county judge. Yet judicial rules bar judges from political donations of any kind. And canvassing board rules bar members from 'displaying a candidate's campaign signs.'" The article includes a photo of Shore. His appearance is exactly what you would expect. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Andrew Pantazi of the Florida Times-Union: "Duval County Canvassing Board Chair Brent Shore has resigned from the board. Chief Judge Mark Mahon said that although Shore resigned, 'he indicated he has always conducted himself fairly and impartially.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Minnesota. Zach Montellaro of Politico: "A panel of federal appellate judges ruled Thursday that ballots that arrive after polls close in Minnesota on Election Day must be segregated from ballots that arrive earlier, suggesting that future rulings could invalidate the late-arriving ballots. In Minnesota, ballots are typically required to be returned to election officials by mail by the time polls close in order to count. But for the 2020 election, a consent decree agreed to by Secretary of State Steve Simon mandated that ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received within seven days would count. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals panel split 2-1 on its order that the late-arriving ballots be segregated, which would allow them to be removed from the final count if a court later threw them out. The judges ruled that the case was 'likely to succeed on the merits.'... Judges Bobby Shepherd, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, and Trump appointee L. Steven Grasz formed the majority. Judge Jane Kelly, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, dissented." ~~~

     ~~~ "Outrageous." Rick Hasen: "The majority suggests that a consent decree extending the deadline for absentee ballots in Minnesota, entered into by the Secretary of State and plaintiffs and approved by a state court, usurps the power of the state legislature.... The court reached this conclusion despite the fact that the Legislature did not object..., that the Legislature delegated the power to the Secretary of State to take these steps, and despite the fact that we are on the eve of the election. This timing issue is doubly troubling. First, the Supreme Court has said that federal courts should be very wary of changing election rules just before the election.... More importantly..., Minnesota voters ... have been told until today that they have extra time to mail their ballots. Now there is the very real chance that those late-arriving ballots won't count through no fault of their own.... It is voters that are going to be on the short end of things."

North Carolina. John Kruzel of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Thursday denied a Republican bid to block a mail-ballot extension in North Carolina, a day after rejecting a similar GOP effort in the key battleground state. The court's three most conservative justices -- Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito -- would have granted the Republican request. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the bench Tuesday, took no part in considering the case. The voting breakdown mirrored that of a similar Wednesday night ruling in which the court rejected an effort by the Trump campaign and North Carolina Republicans to reverse a six-day mail ballot due date extension."

Donald Trump launched the biggest voter suppression campaign in U.S. history. -- Brian Williams, on MSNBC, Thursday night ~~~

~~~ David Siders & Zach Montellaro of Politico: "The president's inability to capture a majority of support sheds light on his extraordinary attempts to limit the number of votes cast across the battleground state map -- a massive campaign-within-a-campaign to maximize Trump's chances of winning a contest in which he's all but certain to earn less than 50 percent of the vote.... Never before in modern presidential politics has a candidate been so reliant on wide-scale efforts to depress the vote as Trump. 'What we have seen this year which is completely unprecedented ... is a concerted national Republican effort across the country in every one of the states that has had a legal battle to make it harder for citizens to vote,' said Trevor Potter, a former chair of the Federal Election Commission who served as general counsel to Republican John McCain's two presidential campaigns."

** Pennsylvania. Trump's Plan to Steal the Election. Nick Corasaniti & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "President Trump's campaign in the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania is pursuing a three-pronged strategy that would effectively suppress mail-in votes in the state, moving to stop the processing of absentee votes before Election Day, pushing to limit how late mail-in ballots can be accepted and intimidating Pennsylvanians trying to vote early.... The campaign's strategy is backed up by public statements from the president, who barnstormed the state on Monday and repeatedly made false claims about the security of voting in Pennsylvania along with ominous warnings. 'A lot of strange things happening in Philadelphia,' he said during a stop in Allentown. 'We're watching you, Philadelphia. We're watching at the highest level.'" Mrs. McC: Worth reading. Back in the heyday of city bosses, I thought Democrats' handing out "walking-around money" to buy votes was mighty dicey, but stopping voters from voting is even worse. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Pennsylvania state officials are in the extraordinary position of actively taking defensive steps to preempt a situation in which the Supreme Court helps Trump suppress untold numbers of lawfully cast ballots -- as Trump has openly declared he expects it to do.... Trump's open effort to conscript the Supreme Court is only the latest in a long line of efforts to bend the government and the machinery of justice toward his reelection. The scale of the corruption is unprecedented. But, with a massive enough effort, it can be defeated." Sargent outlines a few scenarios where the confederate Supremes easily could rationalize throwing out some or all mail-in ballots. It's stomach-churning. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Wisconsin. Scott Bauer of the AP: "Hackers have stolen $2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party's account that was being used to help reelect ... Donald Trump in the key battleground state, the party's chairman told The Associated Press on Thursday. The party noticed the suspicious activity on Oct. 22 and contacted the FBI on Friday, said Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ben Collins & Brandy Zadrozny of NBC News: "One month before a purported leak of files from Hunter Biden's laptop, a fake 'intelligence' document about him went viral on the right-wing internet, asserting an elaborate conspiracy theory involving former Vice President Joe Biden's son and business in China. The document, a 64-page composition that was later disseminated by close associates of ... Donald Trump, appears to be the work of a fake 'intelligence firm' called Typhoon Investigations, according to researchers and public documents. The author of the document, a self-identified Swiss security analyst named Martin Aspen, is a fabricated identity, according to analysis by disinformation researchers, who also concluded that Aspen's profile picture was created with an artificial intelligence face generator. The intelligence firm that Aspen lists as his previous employer said that no one by that name had ever worked for the company and that no one by that name lives in Switzerland, according to public records and social media searches.... The document and its spread have become part of a wider effort to smear Hunter Biden and weaken Joe Biden's presidential campaign, which moved from the fringes of the internet to more mainstream conservative news outlets." See also the Daily Beast's story on Glenn Greenwald's resignation from the Intercept, linked at the bottom of this page. ~~~

~~~ It Once Was Lost & Now It's Found. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "A spokesman for UPS told The Daily Beast on Thursday that they had located a mysterious packaged that Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested had been deliberately misplaced or intercepted because it contained 'damning' materials on the Biden family. 'After an extensive search, we have found the contents of the package and are arranging for its return,' the spokesman said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Georgia Senate Race. Tim Elfrink of the Washington Post: "In the final 10 minutes of a blistering debate in the waning days of a tight race, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) on Wednesday night took aim at his Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff, for his fundraising haul from out-of-state donors. 'They want this radical socialist agenda,' Perdue said. In response, Ossoff unleashed on Perdue over the GOP's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a topic the challenger spent most of the hour-long debate relentlessly hammering.... The heated exchange, which went viral in a Twitter clip that was viewed more than 3 million times as of early Thursday, illustrates a central challenge faced by vulnerable GOP senators forced to follow President Trump's lead in arguing that the pandemic is improving even as case numbers again significantly rise nationally." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The second part of this video consists of remarks by Brian Tyler Cohen. I was going to look for a different video of Ossoff's takedown of Perdue, but Cohen's remarks provide context for Ossoff's critique. AND he reveals what happened next: ~~~

     ~~~ Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "The third and final televised debate in the race between U.S. Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff was canceled Thursday after the Republican incumbent pulled out to join ... Donald Trump in a planned rally in northwest Georgia. The debate was scheduled weeks ago to air Sunday on Channel 2 WSB-TV, but Perdue backed out shortly after word spread that Trump would hold a rally for his reelection campaign in Rome the same day. Locked in a statistical tie in the polls, Ossoff accused the Republican of ducking another face-to-face meeting after 'millions saw that Perdue had no answers when I called him out on his record of blatant corruption, widespread disease and economic devastation' at a Wednesday debate. 'Shame on you,' Ossoff added."

Montana Gubernatorial Race. Oops! Jonah Bromwich & Ezra Marcus of the New York Times: "Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, on Thursday became the latest Republican politician to be fooled into making a campaign video on behalf of a Democrat. Mr. Christie is one of many of Mr. Trump's current and former associates available for hire on Cameo, an app that allows users to commission personalized videos from minor -- and increasingly major -- celebrities. The video, which cost $200, was framed as a jovial message to a person named Greg, who Mr. Christie was prompted to encourage to return to New Jersey, Greg's former home. What Mr. Christie did not know was that the video was meant for Greg Gianforte, the Republican nominee in Montana's governor's race. It was commissioned by the campaign of Mr. Gianforte's opponent, Mike Cooney." ~~~

a special message for @gregformontana pic.twitter.com/YEWM0dEi2S

— Mike Cooney (@CooneyforMT) October 29, 2020

Trump Is Corrupt. Trump Is a Corrupt Traitor. Eric Lipton & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times on how Donald Trump and some of his henchmen -- like Rudy Giuliani & Michael Flynn -- backed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey when Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Southern District of New York's attorney, wanted to further investigate & criminally prosecute members of Erdogan's family & political party & the Turkey-owned Halkbank. Trump got help, of course, from Attorney General Bill Barr & Acting AG Matt Whitaker. "At the White House, Mr. Trump's handling of the matter became troubling even to some senior officials at the time. The president was discussing an active criminal case with the authoritarian leader of a nation in which Mr. Trump does business; he reported receiving at least $2.6 million in net income from operations in Turkey from 2015 through 2018, according to tax records obtained by The New York Times.... Former White House officials said they came to fear that the president was open to swaying the criminal justice system to advance a transactional and ill-defined agenda of his own." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

All in the Family. Josh Lederman of NBC: "Less than three months after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was sworn in, his son, Nick, reached out to thank State Department officials for a private tour they had given him and his mother, Susan Pompeo, of the agency's in-house museum.... 'We view this as a family endeavor, so if you think there is any place I can add value, don't hesitate to reach out.' [Nick Pompeo wrote]... [I]n hundreds of pages of emails obtained by NBC News..., the Pompeos have repeatedly blurred the lines between official government business and domestic or personal matters.... Both Congress and the State Department's inspector general have been investigating potential misuse of government resources by Mike Pompeo and his wife...[who] routinely gives instructions to State Department officials from her personal email address[.]" --s

All the Best People, Ctd. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "The head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection [Mark Morgan] railed against Twitter on Thursday after he said the social media platform locked his account for violating its policies on hate speech when he tweeted about the U.S.-Mexico border wall.... Screenshots of the tweet provided to the conservative site The Federalist and confirmed to Politico show Morgan's tweet hailed the efficacy of the border wall, saying that 'every mile helps us stop gang members, murderers, sexual predators and drugs from entering our country. It'a fact, walls work,' the tweet read. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that Morgan had been locked out of his account but said 'the decision was reversed following an appeal by the account owner and further evaluation from our team.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Darryl Fears of the Washington Post: "Weeks after the Interior Department halted diversity training to comply with an executive order from President Trump a top assistant at the agency is under scrutiny for defending Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager accused of fatally shooting two people and injuring a third during a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, WisThe official, Jeremy Carl, a newly appointed deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, also called peaceful Black Lives Matter protests racist and cited an opinion piece in a white supremacist publication, American Renaissance, to support an argument denouncing the anti-discrimination work of former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. American Renaissance, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 'has been one of the vilest white nationalist publications, often promoting eugenics and blatant anti-black and anti-Latino racists.' Featured on the publication's website are articles such as 'Twelve Steps to White Recovery: Recovery from white conditioning' and 'The Dangers of Diversity: What happens when races mix.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: To be clear, then, Trump is not merely defending white supremacists as "very fine people"; he is giving them top political jobs in his "administration."

AND We Thought Trump Didn't Have a Second-Term Agenda. Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "... Donald Trump's senior adviser Stephen Miller has fleshed out plans to rev up Trump's restrictive immigration agenda if he wins re-election next week, offering a stark contrast to the platform of Democratic nominee Joe Biden. In a 30-minute phone interview Thursday with NBC News, Miller outlined four major priorities: limiting asylum grants, punishing and outlawing so-called sanctuary cities, expanding the so-called travel ban with tougher screening for visa applicants and slapping new limits on work visas.... And he said he intends to stay on to see the agenda through in a second term if Trump is re-elected.... Miller has spearheaded an immigration policy that critics describe as cruel, racist and antithetical to American values as a nation of immigrants. He scoffs at those claims, insisting that his only priority is to protect the safety and wages of Americans."

Tom Philpott of Mother Jones: "On Oct. 27, a week before the final day of voting, Andrew Wheeler, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, [went to rural Georgia] to deliver the agency's much-awaited verdict of a controversial herbicide [called dicamba, made ... by chemical giants Bayer (formerly Monsanto) and BASF, and] widely used by the nation's cotton and soybean farmers, including Georgia's.... But ... the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco back in June, rul[ed] on a lawsuit filed by environmental and progressive farm groups: dicamba has a lavishly documented tendency to drift off-target and damage crops and other foliage in neighboring fields.... Citing the drift problem, the court vacated the EPA's previous approval of the Bayer and BASF products, making them illegal to use going forward.... The move marks the second time the Trump EPA has intervened on the side of gigantic global chemical company to keep a high-selling pesticide on the market over the objections of scientists." --s

Charlie Savage & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The Justice Department decided more than a year ago to effectively shut down its civil-rights investigation into the high-profile killing of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black boy carrying a pellet gun who was shot by a Cleveland police officer in 2014, according to people familiar with the matter. Career prosecutors had asked in 2017 to use a grand jury to gather evidence in their investigation, setting off tensions inside the department. In an unusual move, department supervisors let the request languish for two years before finally denying permission in August 2019, essentially ending the inquiry without fully conducting it. But more than a year later, the department has yet to take the bureaucratic steps to close the case.... And it has not told the Rice family or the public that it will not charge the police officer."

Vanessa Romo of the NPR: "Walmart pulled guns and ammunition from its store shelves as a precautionary measure, following the unrest in Philadelphia this week after police fatally shot a Black man more than a dozen times on Monday. Both weapons and bullets are still available for purchase in the stores that carry them, but customers will have to specifically request the items as opposed to grabbing them from display shelves. 'It's important to note that we only sell firearms in approximately half of our stores, primarily where there are large concentrations of hunters, sportsmen, and sportswomen,' a Walmart spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. The retail giant operates 4,700 stores in the U.S."

Kenny Jacoby & Ryan Gabrielson of ProPublica: "Introduced in memory of a young woman murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Marsy's Law was created to offer crime victims a slate of rights, including protecting them and their families from harassment by their attackers. Now, as police across the nation face cries for accountability amid mounting evidence of brutality and systemic racism, law-enforcement agencies in Florida are using Marsy's Law to shield officers after they use force, sometimes under questionable circumstances.... Marsy's Law passed first in California in 2008 and, through a well-funded campaign by the woman's brother, is the law in 11 other states. It happened each time by ballot initiative, allowing voters to adopt all of its implications with a single yes.... The law increasingly has been co-opted by police.... At least half of Florida's 30 largest police agencies said they apply it to shield the names of on-duty officers, a USA Today and ProPublica investigation found."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "On Thursday, the country recorded at least 90,000 new cases (that's the equivalent of more than one per second) and crossed the threshold of nine million cases since the start of the pandemic.Over the past week, the United States has recorded more than 500,000 new cases, averaging more than 77,000 a day, and nine states reported daily records on Thursday.... Daily reports of deaths from the virus remain far below their spring peaks, averaging around 800 a day, but those, too, have started to tick upward.... Reports of new cases are increasing in 42 states.

"As the nation heads into what some public health experts warn could be a 'dark winter' of coronavirus illness and death, a growing cadre is coalescing around Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s call for a 'national mask mandate,' even as they concede such an effort would require much more than the stroke of a presidential pen. Over the past week, a string of prominent public health experts -- notably Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government's top infectious disease specialist, and Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of food and drugs under President Trump -- have said it is time to seriously consider a national mandate to curb the spread of the virus." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Lauren Leatherby of the New York Times maps the surge.

Jim Salter of the AP (Oct. 23): "With the number of coronavirus patients requiring hospitalization rising at alarming levels, Missouri and perhaps a handful of other states are unable to post accurate data on COVID-19 dashboards because of a flaw in the federal reporting system.... But The COVID Tracking Project said in a blog post that it has 'identified five other states with anomalies in their hospitalization figures' that could be tied to the HHS reporting problem. The project noted that the number of reported intensive care unit patients in Kansas had decreased from 80 to one without explanation. It said Wisconsin's hospitalization figures stayed unexpectedly flat while other indicators worsened. And it said Georgia, Alabama, and Florida reported only partial updates to hospitalization data." --s

"Essential Worker" MIA. Adam Cancryn & Dan Goldberg of Politico: "When Vice President Mike Pence first took charge of the White House's coronavirus task force, among his earliest moves was establishing a standing call with all 50 governors aimed at closely coordinating the nation's pandemic fight. Yet as the U.S. confronts its biggest Covid-19 surge to date, Pence hasn't attended one of those meetings in over a month. Pence -- who has been touting the Trump administration's response effort on the campaign trail for weeks -- is not expected to be on the line again Friday, when the group holds its first governors call since Oct. 13, said a person with knowledge of the plan. It's a prolonged absence that represents just the latest sign of the task force's diminished role in the face of the worsening public health crisis it was originally created to combat.... [Pence's] presence on the campaign trail ... has dismayed public health officials, coming soon after five members of his inner circle contracted Covid-19." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Remember that the White House's phony excuse for sending pence out on the campaign trail in flagrant violation of CDC guidelines was that he was an essential worker. The kicker is that it turns out he is not even doing his "essential work"; rather, Typhoid Mike is is doing "work" that is not part of his job, description but is in his own self-interest & against the interests of the people around the country with whom he comes into contact.

Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "Donald Trump Jr. brushed off concerns about the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, blithely claiming that deaths from the virus have dropped to 'almost nothing' on a day when more than 1,000 Americans died from the outbreak. Appearing on Fox News' The Ingraham Angle, Trump's eldest son slammed CNN for calling out his father's mostly maskless, non-socially distanced campaign rallies as potential super-spreader events.... 'These people, these people are truly morons,' a somewhat manic Trump Jr. told host Laura Ingraham, hitting back at CNN." Update: a Washington Post story is here.

"Ursula Perano of Axios: "Former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. announced Thursday that he had filed a lawsuit against the school, claiming that it had 'needlessly injured and damaged his reputation' after his resignation earlier this year.... Falwell resigned in August after a series of controversial scandals culminated in a Reuters story alleging that he and his wife had a years-long intimate relationship with a business partner." Mrs. McC: Uh, Jerry, it might not be the school that damaged your reputation. Check your mirror. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

"Incredibly Sad News." Adam Silverman of Balloon Juice: "In news that I'm sure will have everyone here incredibly sad, Glenn Greenwald; professional contrarian; faux erudite bullshit artist; asshole; seemingly unaware Russian intelligence dupe; professional victim of everyone else's intolerance, shortsightedness, stupidity, and inability to appreciate his brilliance; and person running an investigative journalism venture built on his reputation of publishing information provided by leakers; but unable to actually protect one of the leakers because he never actually established any standard operating procedures to vet and protect leakers and he and his crack team are morons; has quit The Intercept.... As you can imagine, he wasted over 10,000 words in his diatribe against the publication he established with someone else's money for not letting him do whatever it is he wanted to do because they are all a bunch of partisan hacks and don't understand Glenn's genius for producing overwrought garbage." Mrs. McC: Thank you, Adam, for saying it so much better than I could have. ~~~

     ~~~ Well, Andrew Sullivan is upset. And so is Donald Trump, Jr. Thanks to Robert Farley in LG&$ for these links. ~~~

     ~~~ Maxwell Tani & Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast write a straight report on Greenwald's resignation: "Glenn Greenwald on Thursday announced that he had resigned from The Intercept -- the digital outlet he founded in 2013 with fellow journalists Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill, and with funding from First Look Media -- claiming 'repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity' at the publication. In response, the outlet disputed his claims of censorship and suggested his exit was essentially 'a grown man throwing a tantrum.'" Greenwald was pissed, according to the Intercept's editor-in-chief Betsy Klein, because the Intercept's editors asked him "to support his claims and innuendo about corrupt actions by Joe Biden with evidence."

The Commentariat -- October 29, 2020

Afternoon Update:

** Trump's Plan to Steal the Election. Nick Corasaniti & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "President Trump's campaign in the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania is pursuing a three-pronged strategy that would effectively suppress mail-in votes in the state, moving to stop the processing of absentee votes before Election Day, pushing to limit how late mail-in ballots can be accepted and intimidating Pennsylvanians trying to vote early.... The campaign's strategy is backed up by public statements from the president, who barnstormed the state on Monday and repeatedly made false claims about the security of voting in Pennsylvania along with ominous warnings. 'A lot of strange things happening in Philadelphia,' he said during a stop in Allentown. 'We're watching you, Philadelphia. We're watching at the highest level.'" Mrs. McC: Worth reading. Back in the heyday of city bosses, I thought Democrats' handing out "walking-around money" to buy votes was mighty dicey, but stopping voters from voting is even worse. ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Pennsylvania state officials are in the extraordinary position of actively taking defensive steps to preempt a situation in which the Supreme Court helps Trump suppress untold numbers of lawfully cast ballots -- as Trump has openly declared he expects it to do.... Trump's open effort to conscript the Supreme Court is only the latest in a long line of efforts to bend the government and the machinery of justice toward his reelection. The scale of the corruption is unprecedented. But, with a massive enough effort, it can be defeated." Sargent outlines a few scenarios where the confederate Supremes easily could rationalize throwing out some or all

Florida. Andrew Pantazi of the Florida Times-Union: "A local judge and head of Duval County's [Jacksonville] vote-counting board has donated repeatedly to President Trump's re-election campaign and other Republican efforts, and his home is covered in signs supporting Trump, despite rules requiring judges like him refrain from donations or public support. Duval County senior Judge Brent Shore has served as chairman of the canvassing board because of his role as a county judge. Yet judicial rules bar judges from political donations of any kind. And canvassing board rules bar members from 'displaying a candidate's campaign signs.'" The article includes a photo of Shore. His appearance is exactly what you would expect. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Andrew Pantazi of the Florida Times-Union: "Duval County Canvassing Board Chair Brent Shore has resigned from the board. Chief Judge Mark Mahon said that although Shore resigned, 'he indicated he has always conducted himself fairly and impartially.'"

Scott Bauer of the AP: "Hackers have stolen $2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party's account that was being used to help reelect ... Donald Trump in the key battleground state, the party's chairman told The Associated Press on Thursday. The party noticed the suspicious activity on Oct. 22 and contacted the FBI on Friday, said Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt."

It Once Was Lost & Now It's Found. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "A spokesman for UPS told The Daily Beast on Thursday that they had located a mysterious packaged that Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested had been deliberately misplaced or intercepted because it contained 'damning' materials on the Biden family. 'After an extensive search, we have found the contents of the package and are arranging for its return,' the spokesman said."

Trump Is Corrupt. Trump Is a Corrupt Traitor. Eric Lipton & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times on how Donald Trump and some of his henchmen -- like Rudy Giuliani & Michael Flynn -- backed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey when Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Southern District of New York's attorney, wanted to further investigate & criminally prosecute members of Erdogan's family & political party & the state-owned Halkbank. Trump got help, of course, from Attorney General Bill Barr & Acting AG Matt Whitaker. "At the White House, Mr. Trump's handling of the matter became troubling even to some senior officials at the time. The president was discussing an active criminal case with the authoritarian leader of a nation in which Mr. Trump does business; he reported receiving at least $2.6 million in net income from operations in Turkey from 2015 through 2018, according to tax records obtained by The New York Times.... Former White House officials said they came to fear that the president was open to swaying the criminal justice system to advance a transactional and ill-defined agenda of his own."

Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "The head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection [Mark Morgan] railed against Twitter on Thursday after he said the social media platform locked his account for violating its policies on hate speech when he tweeted about the U.S.-Mexico border wall.... Screenshots of the tweet provided to the conservative site The Federalist and confirmed to Politico show Morgan's tweet hailed the efficacy of the border wall, saying that 'every mile helps us stop gang members, murderers, sexual predators and drugs from entering our country. It's a fact, walls work,' the tweet read. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that Morgan had been locked out of his account but said 'the decision was reversed following an appeal by the account owner and further evaluation from our team.'"

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "As the nation heads into what some public health experts warn could be a 'dark winter' of coronavirus illness and death, a growing cadre is coalescing around Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s call for a 'national mask mandate,' even as they concede such an effort would require much more than the stroke of a presidential pen. Over the past week, a string of prominent public health experts -- notably Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government's top infectious disease specialist, and Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of food and drugs under President Trump -- have said it is time to seriously consider a national mandate to curb the spread of the virus."

Ursula Perano of Axios: "Former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. announced Thursday that he had filed a lawsuit against the school, claiming that it had 'needlessly injured and damaged his reputation' after his resignation earlier this year.... Falwell resigned in August after a series of controversial scandals culminated in Reuters story alleging that he and his wife had a years-long intimate relationship with a business partner." Mrs. McC: Uh, Jerry, it might not be the school that damaged your reputation. Check your mirror.

~~~~~~~~~~

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: If you voted absentee, you should be able to trace your ballot online to see if it has been received. Even though I hand-carried my ballot to the town clerk, there is an online record of its status that is easy to access. (I Googled something like "track my absentee ballot". I didn't even enter the state, but Google figured it out straightaway & provided a link to my state's "Check Ballot Status" page.) Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, who lives in the District of Columbia, writes, "I';m voting twice this year, just as President Trump told me to do. I returned my absentee ballot the day I got it last month, but the local board of elections, deluged by the volume of ballots, still hasn't 'accepted' my ballot and suggests I cast a provisional ballot in person on Election Day." (Also linked below.) State laws will vary, but it's certainly worth checking to make sure the state has recorded receipt of your ballot & find out if, like Milbank, you can vote provisionally if your ballot remains "in the mail."

Election 2020

The New York Times' live election updates Thursday are here: "... Mr. Trump has added a Thursday trip to his itinerary in Tampa, Fla. -- where Mr. Biden will also appear later in the day -- to hold a rally outside a football stadium.... In his speeches, the president uses the size of his crowds as evidence that he can't possibly be losing. The irony is that the same contrast &-- Mr. Biden's adhering to public health guidelines while Mr. Trump flouts them -- is exactly the message that the former vice president and his Delaware-centered campaign want to send to voters."

The Washington Post's live election updates Wednesday are here. Access is free to non-subscribers.

     ~~~ Related stories linked below.

Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "People in the securities and investment industry will finish the 2020 election cycle contributing over $74 million to back Joe Biden's candidacy for president, a much larger sum than what ... Donald Trump raised from Wall Street, according to new data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics." (Also linked yesterday.)

Manuel Roig-Franzia of the Washington Post profiles Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris's husband.

Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "As an immense new surge in coronavirus cases sweeps the country, President Trump is closing his re-election campaign by pleading with voters to ignore the evidence of a calamity unfolding before their eyes and trust his word that the disease is already disappearing as a threat to their personal health and economic well being. The president has continued to declare before large and largely maskless crowds that the virus is vanishing, even as case counts soar, fatalities climb, the stock market dips and a fresh outbreak grips the staff of Vice President Mike Pence. Hopping from one state to the next, he has made a personal mantra out of declaring that the country is 'rounding the corner.'" He also blamed the media for reporting on the record-breaking case numbers, blamed testing for the case numbers & claimed Covid-19 wasn't that big a deal because he beat it & his teenaged son barely suffered: "He has sniffles, he was sniffling. One Kleenex, that's all he needed, and he was better. But he's a case."

~~~ Kevin Liptak of CNN: "... Donald Trump is ending his reelection bid in a frenzied cross-country push for votes in states he won -- some handily -- four years ago. But he is not pretending to be happy about it. 'It wasn't even going to be like we had an election,' Trump said on a rain-drenched tarmac in Lansing, Michigan, on Tuesday, lamenting that the coronavirus had imperiled his political prospects and, in his telling, forced him to return to the cold grind and meteorological mishaps of the campaign trail. 'I probably wouldn't be standing out here in the freezing rain with you,' he told a crowd of hearty souls who had been standing for hours in persistent drizzle to hear him speak. 'I'd be home in the White House, doing whatever the hell I was doing. I wouldn't be out here.'... He hasn't shied away from telling his supporters he would never find himself in their states unless he needed their votes. 'We win Wisconsin, we win the whole ballgame,' he said last week on yet another frigid airport tarmac, this time in Janesville. 'What the hell do you think I'm doing here on a freezing night with 45-degree winds? Do you think I'm doing this for my health?' he continued as the temperature dropped and some of the crowd began trickling out." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As far as I can tell, while Biden's closing argument is a promise to unite the country (and good luck with that), Trump's closing argument is, "I don't give a damn about any of you." ~~~

~~~ Trump Leaves Trumpbots Out in the Cold. Geoff Bennett, et al., of NBC News: "Thousands of ... Donald Trump supporters were left in the freezing cold for hours after a rally at an airfield in Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday night, with some walking around three miles to waiting buses and others being taken away in ambulances. Many of those at the rally at the Eppley Airfield faced hours in long lines to get in and clogged parking lots and busy crowds to get out, hours after his Air Force One departed around 9 p.m. Crowds cleared about 12:30 a.m.... At least 30 people including the elderly, an electric wheelchair user and a family with small children were among those requiring medical attention after hours of waiting in the cold at the rally at the Eppley Airfield. 'Supporters of the president were brought in, but buses weren't able to get back to transport people out. It's freezing and snowy in Omaha tonight,' Nebraska State Senator Megan Hunt tweeted." Mrs. McC: What did they expect? Once they had showed up for a Trumpian superspreader photo-op, Donald didn't need them anymore, so of course he iced them. (Also linked yesterday.)

Hey, Trump Has Endorsements, Too. Here, via the Washington Post, are some dictators, authoritarians & nationalists for Trump.

Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "The deadly police shooting of a Black man in Philadelphia has roiled the presidential campaign in a key battleground state just days before the election, igniting tensions over race, violence and law enforcement that pose political challenges for Joe Biden and President Trump. Trump has seized on riots and looting that erupted in the aftermath of Monday's shooting in an effort to portray Biden as soft on crime, while selling himself as the 'law and order' candidate. 'You can't have chaos like that -- and he'll be very, very weak,' Trump predicted Wednesday of the Democratic nominee. Biden has pushed back on those attacks, saying repeatedly that he does not condone looting and has no tolerance for violence against police. He also expressed outrage at the killing of Walter Wallace Jr., condemning in strong terms 'another Black life in America lost.'... The former vice president's emphasis on violent protesters has frustrated some, who say he should focus less on looting and more on racial justice.... Philadelphia was under a curfew Wednesday night." ~~~

Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump said Wednesday that the federal government is looking into the police killing of Walter Wallace Jr. in Philadelphia while condemning the rioting that followed his death.... Trump called on the state to mobilize its National Guard to address the riots and looting, which Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) had already done earlier Wednesday. The president also sought to blame the unrest on Democratic-run states and cities, saying that 'Republicans don't have it' and characterizing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as weak on crime. He claimed at one point that police were told to 'stand back' and not 'do anything' to quell the riots. Trump did not say how he came to understand this but said he heard it 'on very good authority.' 'This is a group that [Biden] supports. He doesn't want to condemn them,' Trump said. 'You have to condemn them, you have to be strong, you cannot have chaos like that and he will be very, very weak.' In fact, Biden condemned the violence during an appearance in Wilmington, Del., Wednesday prior to Trump's press conference."

Intentionally Hilarious. Just in time for the 2020 presidential election, the "Access Hollywood" tape resurfaces. Fortunately, this time around there's video! with Sarah Cooper starring as Donald Trump & Dame Helen Mirren playing Billy Bush. Video of the segment, which is part of Cooper's Neflix special, at the link. Thanks to unwashed for the link. Update: But a story linked below shows how useful this performance could be to Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.).

Unintentionally Hilarious. Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: Fox "News"' Tucker Carlson claims he is the victim of a "nefarious Democrat plot" to steal incriminating evidence he had against Joe & Hunter Biden. Baragona's recap: "Tucker Carlson's office received secret documents from a source that could change the course of the election, asked for them to be shipped across the country rather than scanned and securely emailed, his producer sent them off, and they have now been stolen from a mail facility, and no one knows what happened."

In Announcing Election Interference, Ratcliffe Interfered with Election. Natasha Bertrand & Daniel Lippman of Politico: "Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe went off script when he alleged during a press conference last week that Iran was sending intimidating emails to Americans in order to 'damage President Trump,' according to two senior administration officials with knowledge of the episode. The reference to Trump was not in Ratcliffe's prepared remarks about the foreign election interference, as shown to and signed off by FBI Director Chris Wray and senior DHS official Chris Krebs, the director of the department's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency.... They were surprised by Ractliffe's political aside..., the officials said.... [Ratcliffe also] omitted any references to the Proud Boys during last week's briefing, even though the group was named in his prepared remarks.... The press conference centered around menacing emails that had been sent to Democratic voters warning them to vote for Trump 'or we will come after you.'..."

Timothy Johnson of Media Matters: "Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes said members of his militia will be at polling locations on Election Day to 'protect' Trump voters during an appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' program.... Rhodes ... [said] Oath Keepers would follow directives from ... Donald Trump to take members of the 'deep state' into custody and 'do what we have to do,' that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act before the election, that Oath Keepers will 'be in range' of Washington D.C., to stop a 'Benghazi-style' attack on the White House on election night, and that a war will have to be fought against Democrats on the West Coast who are 'bought' by the Chinese government.... Rhodes telegraphed how he will interpret election results, saying that he would consider a win by ... Joe Biden illegitimate and evidence the election had been stolen, presaging how he and his militia might react to that outcome." (Also linked yesterday.)

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "The once-proud Republican Party has determined, correctly, that its only way to prevail in this election is to keep people from voting. Republicans and their allies have devoted some $20 million to wage more than 300 court fights across the country either to strike down election rules that encourage higher voter turnout..., according to the Center for Public Integrity.... Republicans have won the popular vote for the presidency only once since 1988, and the Senate Republican majority has for years represented a minority of the population. But they have used this minority rule to stack the judiciary, including six of the nine Supreme Court justices. Now Republican billionaires are financing a legal war to block voting rights -- and the judges the minority Republicans installed on the courts are trying to shield Republican power from the will of the people."

"Florida Man Charged"! Gary Fineout of Politico: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was briefly unable to vote this week because a 20-year-old Naples man altered the Republican governor's home address in the state's voter registration database. Florida authorities arrested Anthony Steven Guevara late Tuesday and charged him with two counts, including felony voter fraud for changing someone's registration without their consent. DeSantis, who lives in Tallahassee, discovered that his address had been changed to West Palm Beach when he went to vote in Leon County on Monday afternoon, according to a report filed by the Collier County Sheriff's Department. After being told that his address had been changed, DeSantis called the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Secretary of State Laurel Lee said that the situation 'was corrected immediately' and the governor was able to vote. The state's voter registration system wasn't breached and is secure, she said in a written statement.... Guevara ... showed officers how he was able to change the governor's address through the state's voter registration portal.... Voter registration information is public in Florida and other states. Guevara told them he changed DeSantis's address to that of a You Tube personality." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Sounds like a remarkably sloppy system to me. A partisan group could maliciously change tens of thousands of addresses & cause those voters hassles at the polls. However, in fairness, anything that discombobulates DeSantis is inherently funny.

Michigan. Brakkton Booker of NPR: "A Michigan judge has blocked a ban on openly carrying firearms at Michigan polling places on Election Day. Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray granted a preliminary injunction to pro-gun groups who filed motions to block the directive issued by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on Oct. 16. Benson sought to prohibit firearms at polling places, clerk's offices and other locations where absentee ballots will be tallied. Her order also barred individuals openly carrying guns from coming within 100 feet of buildings serving as polling centers. However, Murray said in his opinion Tuesday that Benson's directive didn't follow the formal process laid out in state law about how new orders are enacted.... Following the judge's order, Benson swiftly vowed to appeal." (Also linked yesterday.)

North Carolina. John Kruzel of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an effort by the Trump campaign and Republicans to reverse a six-day mail ballot due date extension in North Carolina. The ruling was a major blow for Trump, who polls show to be locked in a tight race with Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the crucial battleground state, a must-win for the president's reelection chances. The court's three most conservative justices -- Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch -- would have granted the request. Justice >Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court Tuesday, did not participate in consideration of the case." An AP story is here.

Pennsylvania. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused a plea from Pennsylvania Republicans to put their request to halt a three-day extension of the deadline for receiving absentee ballots on an extraordinarily fast track. The move meant that the court would not consider the case, which could have yielded a major ruling on voting procedure, until after Election Day. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court on Tuesday and who might have broken an earlier deadlock in the case, did not cast a vote. A court spokeswoman said Justice Barrett 'did not participate in the consideration of this motion because of the need for a prompt resolution of it and because she has not had time to fully review the parties' filings.'... In a separate statement, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch, said the court may still consider the case after the election." ~~~

     ~~~ The story has been updated to reflect the denial of the North Carolina Republicans' application: "In a pair of decisions welcomed by Democrats, the Supreme Court on Wednesday at least temporarily let election officials in two key battleground states, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, accept absentee ballots for several days after Election Day."

     ~~~ The denial of the Pennsylvania plea, with Alito's statement, is here, via the Supreme Court. The denial of the North Carolina plea is here, also via the Supremes. Thomas would have granted the application; Alito joined Gorsuch's dissent.

Wisconsin. Poorly-Reasoned AND Factually-Challenged. Dan Berman of CNN: "Vermont's secretary of state formally asked Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to correct an opinion he wrote Monday that mistakenly said Vermont had made no changes to its election rules due to the Covid-19 pandemic, In a letter to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Secretary of State Jim Condos explained that Vermont had, for the first time, sent mail-in ballots to every registered voter and also began counting votes earlier than in previous years. In a Monday night order rejecting a Democratic bid to allow Wisconsin to count ballots returned up to six days after Election Day, Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion that cited Vermont as a state that hadn't made changes to its 'ordinary election rules.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Update. New Lede: "Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday night tweaked a line in his controversial opinion on Wisconsin mail-in voting this week, after he received criticism for incorrectly saying Vermont had not changed its election rules due to the Covid-19 pandemic.... Late Wednesday, without comment or explanation, Kavanaugh issued a revised opinion, changing the phrase 'ordinary election rules' to 'ordinary election-deadline rules.' [The offending sentence] now reads: 'Other States such as Vermont, by contrast, have decided not to make changes to their ordinary election-deadline rules, including to the election-day deadline for receipt of absentee ballots.'"

Presidential Election 2020. Andy Kroll of Rolling Stone: "The disinformation operation was christened 'Project Clintonson.' It brought together two notorious figures in Republican political circles, Blackwater founder Erik Prince and Trump adviser Roger Stone. Their objective couldn't have been more explicit. 'We do not need to make major gains among African American voters,' said a 13-page proposal for Project Clintonson that Prince sent to unnamed donors a week before Election Day 2016. 'We merely need to dampen turn out [sic] and make it difficult for the Black Democratic elected officials in Hillary's pocket to turn out Black voters at Obama-like levels. A shift of a few points in the right places can swing this election.' The aim of Project Clintonson was to spotlight a young black man named Danney Williams, who claims that he is Bill Clinton's son, and to cast Hillary Clinton as the 'villain of this drama.' The pitch for Project Clintonson says that Williams was 'definitively the abandoned son' of Bill Clinton and that 'African American voters would be incensed to learn that it was Hillary who demanded that Bill abandon his only son.' There is no evidence to back up the claims about Danney Williams and the Clintons.... It's unclear how much of this plan came to fruition.... [But the project shows] the Trump operation's real aims when it came to black voters, the lengths they would go to dissuade black voters, and the very real possibility that similar operations are underway in 2020."

Arizona Senate Race. Vaughn Hillyard & Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "... Donald Trump offered a not-very warm welcome to Sen. Martha McSally on Wednesday at his campaign rally in Arizona, where McSally, also a Republican, is fighting to hold on to her seat. After saying she was 'respected by everybody' and 'great,' Trump rushed McSally to the stage at an airport rally in Goodyear.... 'Martha, just come up fast. Fast. Fast. Come on. Quick. You got one minute! One minute, Martha! They don't want to hear this, Martha. Come on. Let's go. Quick, quick, quick. Come on. Let's go,' Trump said. McSally spoke for just over a minute, and said she was 'proud' to work with the president -- something a moderator could not get her say during her debate with Democratic challenger Mark Kelly earlier this month. After McSally spoke, Trump called up a trio of politicians from out of state to speak -- Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Of the three, only McCarthy, the House Republican leader, is running for re-election in November. All spoke longer than McSally did -- as did another guest speaker Trump called on, Nigel Farage of Britain's Brexit party. Trump did not rush any of those four."

Georgia Senate Race. Doug Richards of WXIA-TV: "Sen. Kelly Loeffler said Wednesday that she doesn't disagree with anything ... Donald Trump has said or done.... Loeffler told reporters Wednesday that she doesn't know anything about an Access Hollywood tape made in 2005 in which Trump described sexually assaulting women.... Loeffler has been running to keep the seat to which she had been appointed in the US Senate, and boasts that she is the Senate's most reliable supporter of the president." Mrs. McC: So special thanks to Sarah & Dame Helen for reviving the tape for Kelly's edification.

** Terrorist-in-Chief. Greg Miller & Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "The CIA's most endangered employee for much of the past year was ... an analyst who faced a torrent of threats after filing a whistleblower report that led to the impeachment of President Trump. The analyst spent months living in no-frills hotels under surveillance by CIA security, current and former U.S. officials said. He was driven to work by armed officers in an unmarked sedan. On the few occasions he was allowed to reenter his home to retrieve belongings, a security team had to sweep the apartment first.... The measures were imposed by the CIA's Security Protective Service, which monitored thousands of threats across social media and Internet chat rooms. Over time, a pattern emerged: Violent messages surged each time the analyst was targeted in tweets or public remarks by the president.... Over the past year, public servants across the country have faced similar ordeals. The targets encompass nearly every category of government service: mayors, governors and members of Congress, as well as officials Trump has turned against within his own administration. The dynamic appears to be without precedent: government agencies taking extraordinary measures to protect their people from strains of seething hostility stoked by a sitting president. In recent weeks, the danger has become more alarming and visible." (Also linked yesterday.)

Self-Described "Smart Businessman." Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump early Wednesday defended his business practices as a real estate developer after The New York Times reported that he failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, most of it related to a Chicago property, that was forgiven by lenders. 'As a developer long ago, and continuing to this day, the politicians ran Chicago into the ground. I was able to make an appropriately great deal with the numerous lenders on a large and very beautiful tower. Doesn't that make me a smart guy rather than a bad guy?' Trump tweeted.... Trump did not mention the Times report specifically, nor did he deny any of its details, as he often does with media coverage that he views as unfavorable or critical." (Also linked yesterday.)

Another Screw-the-Earth Moment Brought to You by Donald Trump. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Trump will open up more than half of Alaska's Tongass National Forest to logging and other forms of development, according to a notice posted Wednesday, stripping protections that had safeguarded one of the world's largest intact temperate rainforests for nearly two decades. As of Thursday, it will be legal for logging companies to build roads and cut and remove timber throughout more than 9.3 million acres of forest -- featuring old-growth stands of red and yellow cedar, Sitka spruce and Western hemlock. The relatively pristine expanse is also home to plentiful salmon runs and imposing fjords. The decision, which will be published in the Federal Register, reverses protections President Bill Clinton put in place in 2001 and is one of the most sweeping public lands rollbacks Trump has enacted."

Noah Weiland & Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: A $265 million public campaign to 'defeat despair' around the coronavirus was planned partly around the politically tinged theme that 'helping the president will help the country,' according to documents released on Thursday by House investigators. Michael R. Caputo, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, and others involved envisioned a star-studded campaign to lift American spirits, but the lawmakers said they sought to exclude celebrities who had supported gay rights or same-sex marriage or who had publicly disparaged President Trump.... Ultimately, the campaign collapsed amid recriminations and investigation. Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and the select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis released the records, declaring that 'these documents include extremely troubling revelations.' They accused Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, of 'a cover-up to conceal the Trump administration's misuse of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for partisan political purposes ahead of the upcoming election.'"

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, was the anonymous author of The New York Times Op-Ed article in 2018 whose description of President Trump as 'impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective' roiled Washington and set off a hunt for his identity, Mr. Taylor confirmed Wednesday. Mr. Taylor was also the anonymous author of 'A Warning,' a book he wrote the following year that described the president as an 'undisciplined' and 'amoral' leader whose abuse of power threatened the foundations of American democracy. He acknowledged that he was the author of both the book and the opinion article in an interview and in a three-page statement he intended to post online. Mr. Taylor resigned from the Department of Homeland Security in June 2019, and went public with his criticism of Mr. Trump this past summer. He released a video just before the start of the Republican National Convention declaring that the president was unfit for office and endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee." (Also linked yesterday.) CNN's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Here is Miles Taylor's statement, published in Medium.

Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "David Correia, a business associate of impeachment figure Lev Parnas who did business with Rudy Giuliani in the company Fraud Guarantee, plans to plead guilty on Thursday morning on unspecified charges. Federal prosecutors declined to comment on what counts of his indictment Correia plans to plead guilty to or whether he intends to cooperate in the prosecution of Parnas, his co-defendants, or potentially others who have not been named. Correia, however, has been charged with the two key conspiracies that prosecutors hope to prove at trial next year: illegally funneling foreign money into U.S. elections and duping people to invest in Fraud Guarantee, a company that reportedly paid $500,000 to Giuliani." Mrs. McC: Includes photo of Correia with Trump, but the image of Trump looks so familiar I wonder if the picture is Photoshopped. Anyhow, Rudy must be glad to see himself back in the news associated with criminal fraudsters instead of with scenes of his "tucking in his shirt." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "France will reimpose a nationwide lockdown, while Germany will close bars and restaurants and impose other restrictions for a month in a last-ditch effort to protect hospitals from becoming overwhelmed with virus patients as Europe battles a second wave of the pandemic."

** Speaking of "Over-confident Idiots." Michael Warren, et al., of CNN: "... Jared Kushner boasted in mid-April about how the President had cut out the doctors and scientists advising him on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic, comments that came as more than 40,000 Americans already had died from the virus, which was ravaging New York City. In a taped interview on April 18, Kushner told legendary journalist Bob Woodward that Trump was 'getting the country back from the doctors' in what he called a 'negotiated settlement.'... 'Trump's now back in charge. It's not the doctors.'... The statement reflected a political strategy. Instead of following the health experts' advice, Trump and Kushner were focused on what would help the President on Election Day. By their calculations, Trump would be the 'open-up president.'... Kushner was also dismissive of party politics, calling the Republican Party, 'a collection of a bunch of tribes' and describing the GOP platform as 'a document meant to, like, piss people off, basically.' Kushner went on to tell Woodward that Trump did a 'full hostile takeover' of the Republican Party when he became its presidential nominee. He also told Woodward, 'The most dangerous people around the President are over-confident idiots' and that Trump had replaced them with 'more thoughtful people who kind of know their place.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Waldman of the Washington Post: "Kushner's comments reveal something important about both him and the president. We know their handling the pandemic was dictated by politics, and that's a big part of the reason it was such an unmitigated disaster. But even more infuriating is that it was dictated by bad politics. They could have done the right thing for the wrong reasons, taking steps that would save lives solely to benefit President Trump's reelection campaign.... Instead, they did the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. They minimized the pandemic and undermined efforts to contain it because they thought doing so would be a political gold mine. And this has all but guaranteed Trump's defeat." Read on.

David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement: "... Donald Trump and his White House advisers are now fully-embracing the debunked concept of 'herd immunity' as a means to approach the coronavirus pandemic. And while Trump, White House officials, and even Dr. Scott Atlas, the Fox News radiologist who brought the concept to the president, all deny herd immunity is their new policy, senior health officials working with the coronavirus task force say Trump and his advisors are all in. Experts warn adopting a herd immunity approach could cause an additional half-million Americans to die. But The Daily Beast Wednesday night reports the Trump administration has 'begun taking steps to turn the concept' of herd immunity 'into policy.'" The linked Daily Beast story is subscriber-firewalled.

Fred Imbert of CNBC: "U.S. stocks fell sharply on Wednesday amid concerns over the latest increase in coronavirus infections and its potential impact on the global economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 943.24 points, or 3.4%, to 26,519.95, posting its fourth straight negative session. The S&P 500 slid 3.5%, or 119.65 points, to 3,271.03, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.7%, or 426.48 points, to 11,004.87. The Dow and the S&P 500 both suffered their worst day since June 11." Mrs. McC: Just is case Trump was planning to tell us how great the economy is because stock markets.

Ellen Nakashima & Jay Greene of the Washington Post: "Russian-speaking cybercriminals in recent days have launched a coordinated attack targeting U.S. hospitals already stressed by the coronavirus pandemic with ransomware that analysts worry could lead to fatalities. In the space of 24 hours beginning Monday, six hospitals from California to New York have been hit by the Ryuk ransomware, which encrypts data on computer systems, forcing the hospitals in some cases to disrupt patient care and cancel noncritical surgeries, analysts said. The criminals have demanded a ransom ranging upward of $1 million to unlock the system, and some hospitals have paid, they said. On Tuesday, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services issued a joint advisory alerting health-care providers to the threat." Mrs. McC: These cybercriminals are so horrible, even Donald Trump wouldn't stoop so low.

David Waldstein, et al., of the New York Times: "The joy of the Dodgers' long coveted World Series title was overshadowed on Tuesday night when Justin Turner, the team's veteran third baseman, joined his teammates in celebration on the field shortly after learning he had tested positive for the coronavirus. Turner's return to the field, which occurred right in front of Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball's commissioner, at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, raised questions about how the league had allowed such a public lapse in its coronavirus protocols and drew widespread criticism from experts in epidemiology. M.L.B. said on Wednesday afternoon that it would investigate the incident, but placed the blame squarely on Turner, saying he had refused the orders of league security to remain in isolation." Mrs. McC: I hope Turner is too busy celebrating his team's World Series victory to go out & vote for Donald Trump.

Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Twelve years after a New York Times journalist and two others were taken hostage at gunpoint in Afghanistan and held for more than seven months, an Afghan man has been arrested and charged in the kidnapping, federal authorities said on Wednesday. The man, Haji Najibullah, who has been described as a former Taliban commander, was ordered detained by a federal magistrate judge in Manhattan on Wednesday. The journalist, David Rohde, as well as an Afghan journalist, Tahir Ludin, eventually made a desperate nighttime escape in June 2009 from the second floor of a Taliban compound in North Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal areas, that included dropping down a high wall with a rope and making their way to a Pakistani militia post. The third hostage, Asadullah Mangal, their driver, did not escape with them but managed to flee five weeks later."

Another GOP Outrage Show. Shannon Bond of NPR: "The CEOs of some of the biggest tech platforms defended the way they handle online speech to an audience of skeptical senators, many of whom seemed more interested in scoring political points than engaging with thorny debate over content moderation policies and algorithms. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Google's Sundar Pichai appeared virtually Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee that was supposed to focus on a decades-old legal shield insulating tech companies from liability over what users post. But many Republicans on the committee used the opportunity to berate the executives over suspicions that their companies and employees are biased against conservatives -- a frequent complaint on the right for which there is no systematic evidence.... Democrats mainly focused their questions on what steps the platforms are taking to protect from election interference and crack down on hate speech and radicalization as well as how the tech companies have contributed to the downfall of local news media by sapping advertising spending." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As Business Insider's (firewalled) headline writer put it, "Republicans use a Senate hearing to criticize tech CEOs for fact-checking Trump's posts before the election." ~~~

     ~~~ It's All About Marsha. Steven Overly of Politico: "Sen. Marsha Blackburn used a Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday to ask about the employment status of a Google engineer whose criticism of the Tennessee Republican has become fodder for right-wing media outlets over the past two years. Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked CEO Sundar Pichai whether Blake Lemoine, a senior software engineer and artificial intelligence researcher, still has a job at Google. 'He has had very unkind things to say about me and I was just wondering if you all had still kept him working there,' Blackburn said during the hearing, where she and other GOP lawmakers accused tech companies of squelching free speech. Pichai said he did not know Lemoine's employment status." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Clearly, it is lost on Marsha & her confederate colleagues that there's no way a private company can "squelch free speech" because it has no duty in the first place to let every customer have his say. The Senate, on the other hand, is Constitutionally proscribed from "abridging the freedom of speech." Pichai can make a decision about Lemoine's employment, but Blackburn's public attempt to influence Pichai to fire an employee who spoke against her sounds pretty unconstitutional to me.

Roger Sollenberger of Salon: "Weeks after Michigan prosectors hit the pair of right-wing provocateurs with charges in an alleged voter-intimidation robocall scheme, Jacob Wohl, 22, and Jack Burkman, 58, have been indicted by an Ohio grand jury on separate felony counts. Local prosecutors charged Wohl and Burkman each with eight counts of felony telecommunications fraud and seven counts of felony bribery for allegedly sowing false fears about voting by mail in targeted minority communities in Ohio, plus multiple other states. Warrants were issued for the pair's arrest, who face up to 18 years and six months in prison if convicted." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Nina Schtick of UnHerd: "It is no exaggeration to say that soon almost everything we see or hear online will be synthetic -- that is, generated or manipulated by AI.... Some experts estimate that within 5-7 years, 90% of all video content online will be synthetic. Before long, anyone with a smartphone will be able to make Hollywood level AI-generated content... [T]his technology has a dark side. It will, inevitably, be misused, and for that most obvious of male-driven reasons. It was reported last week that the messaging app Telegram is hosting a 'deepfake pornography bot,' which allows users to generate images of naked women. According to the report, there are already over 100,000 such images being circulated in public Telegram channels.... The women who appear to feature in this cache of publicly-shared fake porn are mostly private individuals rather than celebrities. More disturbingly, the images also include deepfake nudes of underage girls." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

Weather Channel: "Hurricane Zeta ripped off roofs, knocked down power lines and trees and flooded streets as it came ashore in Louisiana on Wednesday evening and moved over New Orleans. As the hurricane moved farther inland, trees and power lines fell in Mississippi and Alabama. Storm surge flooded communities along the northern Gulf Coast. One death was reported Wednesday night. New Orleans Emergency Medical Services tweeted that it was responding to a fatal high-voltage electrocution on Palm Street about 8 p.m. CDT. The Associated Press reported that the coroner confirmed a 55-year-old man had been electrocuted by downed power lines."

The Commentariat -- October 28, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, was the anonymous author of The New York Times Op-Ed article in 2018 whose description of President Trump as 'impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective' roiled Washington and set off a hunt for his identity, Mr. Taylor confirmed Wednesday. Mr. Taylor was also the anonymous author of 'A Warning,' a book he wrote the following year that described the president as an 'undisciplined' and 'amoral' leader whose abuse of power threatened the foundations of American democracy. He acknowledged that he was the author of both the book and the opinion article in an interview and in a three-page statement he intended to post online. Mr. Taylor resigned from the Department of Homeland Security in June 2019, and went public with his criticism of Mr. Trump this past summer. He released a video just before the start of the Republican National Convention declaring that the president was unfit for office and endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee."

Timothy Johnson of Media Matters: "Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes said members of his militia will be at polling locations on Election Day to 'protect' Trump voters during an appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' program.... Rhodes ... [said] Oath Keepers would follow directives from ... Donald Trump to take members of the 'deep state' into custody and 'do what we have to do,' that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act before the election, that Oath Keepers will 'be in range' of Washington D.C., to stop a 'Benghazi-style' attack on the White House on election night, and that a war will have to be fought against Democrats on the West Coast who are 'bought' by the Chinese government.... Rhodes telegraphed how he will interpret election results, saying that he would consider a win by ... Joe Biden illegitimate and evidence the election had been stolen, presaging how he and his militia might react to that outcome."

Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "People in the securities and investment industry will finish the 2020 election cycle contributing over $74 million to back Joe Biden's candidacy for president, a much larger sum than what ... Donald Trump raised from Wall Street, according to new data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics."

Kevin Liptak of CNN: "... Donald Trump is ending his reelection bid in a frenzied cross-country push for votes in states he won -- some handily -- four years ago. But he is not pretending to be happy about it. 'It wasn't even going to be like we had an election,' Trump said on a rain-drenched tarmac in Lansing, Michigan, on Tuesday, lamenting that the coronavirus had imperiled his political prospects and, in his telling, forced him to return to the cold grind and meteorological mishaps of the campaign trail. 'I probably wouldn't be standing out here in the freezing rain with you,' he told a crowd of hearty souls who had been standing for hours in persistent drizzle to hear him speak. 'I'd be home in the White House, doing whatever the hell I was doing. I wouldn't be out here.'... He hasn't shied away from telling his supporters he would never find himself in their states unless he needed their votes. 'We win Wisconsin, we win the whole ballgame,' he said last week on yet another frigid airport tarmac, this time in Janesville. 'What the hell do you think I'm doing here on a freezing night with 45-degree winds? Do you think I'm doing this for my health?' he continued as the temperature dropped and some of the crowd began trickling out." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As far as I can tell, while Biden's closing argument is a promise to unite the country (and good luck with that), Trump's closing argument is, "I don't give a damn about any of you." ~~~

~~~ Trump Leaves Trumpbots Out in the Cold. Geoff Bennett, et al., of NBC News: "Thousands of ... Donald Trump supporters were left in the freezing cold for hours after a rally at an airfield in Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday night, with some walking around three miles to waiting buses and others being taken away in ambulances. Many of those at the rally at the Eppley Airfield faced hours in long lines to get in and clogged parking lots and busy crowds to get out, hours after his Air Force One departed around 9 p.m. Crowds cleared about 12:30 a.m.... At least 30 people including the elderly, an electric wheelchair user and a family with small children were among those requiring medical attention after hours of waiting in the cold at the rally at the Eppley Airfield. 'Supporters of the president were brought in, but buses weren't able to get back to transport people out. It's freezing and snowy in Omaha tonight,' Nebraska State Senator Megan Hunt tweeted." Mrs. McC: What did they expect? Once they had showed up for a Trumpian superspreader photo-op, Donald didn't need them anymore, so of course he iced them.

** Speaking of "Over-confident Idiots." Michael Warren, et al., of CNN: "... Jared Kushner boasted in mid-April about how the President had cut out the doctors and scientists advising him on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic, comments that came as more than 40,000 Americans already had died from the virus, which was ravaging New York City. In a taped interview on April 18, Kushner told legendary journalist Bob Woodward that Trump was 'getting the country back from the doctors' in what he called a 'negotiated settlement.'... 'Trump's now back in charge. It's not the doctors.'... The statement reflected a political strategy. Instead of following the health experts' advice, Trump and Kushner were focused on what would help the President on Election Day. By their calculations, Trump would be the 'open-up president.'... Kushner was also dismissive of party politics, calling the Republican Party, 'a collection of a bunch of tribes' and describing the GOP platform as 'a document meant to, like, piss people off, basically.' Kushner went on to tell Woodward that Trump did a 'full hostile takeover' of the Republican Party when he became its presidential nominee. He also told Woodward, 'The most dangerous people around the President are over-confident idiots' and that Trump had replaced them with 'more thoughtful people who kind of know their place.'"

** Terrorist-in-Chief. Greg Miller & Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "The CIA's most endangered employee for much of the past year was ... an analyst who faced a torrent of threats after filing a whistleblower report that led to the impeachment of President Trump. The analyst spent months living in no-frills hotels under surveillance by CIA security, current and former U.S. officials said. He was driven to work by armed officers in an unmarked sedan. On the few occasions he was allowed to reenter his home to retrieve belongings, a security team had to sweep the apartment first.... The measures were imposed by the CIA's Security Protective Service, which monitored thousands of threats across social media and Internet chat rooms. Over time, a pattern emerged: Violent messages surged each time the analyst was targeted in tweets or public remarks by the president.... Over the past year, public servants across the country have faced similar ordeals. The targets encompass nearly every category of government service: mayors, governors and members of Congress, as well as officials Trump has turned against within his own administration. The dynamic appears to be without precedent: government agencies taking extraordinary measures to protect their people from strains of seething hostility stoked by a sitting president. In recent weeks, the danger has become more alarming and visible."

Brakkton Booker of NPR: "A Michigan judge has blocked a ban on openly carrying firearms at Michigan polling places on Election Day. Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray granted a preliminary injunction to pro-gun groups who filed motions to block the directive issued by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on Oct. 16. Benson sought to prohibit firearms at polling places, clerk's offices and other locations where absentee ballots will be tallied. Her order also barred individuals openly carrying guns from coming within 100 feet of buildings serving as polling centers. However, Murray said in his opinion Tuesday that Benson's directive didn't follow the formal process laid out in state law about how new orders are enacted.... Following the judge's order, Benson swiftly vowed to appeal."

Self-Described "Smart Businessman." Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump early Wednesday defended his business practices as a real estate developer after The New York Times reported that he failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, most of it related to a Chicago property, that was forgiven by lenders. 'As a developer long ago, and continuing to this day, the politicians ran Chicago into the ground. I was able to make an appropriately great deal with the numerous lenders on a large and very beautiful tower. Doesn't that make me a smart guy rather than a bad guy?' Trump tweeted.... Trump did not mention the Times report specifically, nor did he deny any of its details, as he often does with media coverage that he views as unfavorable or critical."

Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "David Correia, a business associate of impeachment figure Lev Parnas who did business with Rudy Giuliani in the company Fraud Guarantee, plans to plead guilty on Thursday morning on unspecified charges. Federal prosecutors declined to comment on what counts of his indictment Correia plans to plead guilty to or whether he intends to cooperate in the prosecution of Parnas, his co-defendants, or potentially others who have not been named. Correia, however, has been charged with the two key conspiracies that prosecutors hope to prove at trial next year: illegally funneling foreign money into U.S. elections and duping people to invest in Fraud Guarantee, a company that reportedly paid $500,000 to Giuliani." Mrs. McC: Includes photo of Correia with Trump, but the image of Trump looks so familiar I wonder if the picture is Photoshopped. Anyhow, Rudy must be glad to see himself back in the news associated with criminal fraudsters instead of with scenes of his "tucking in his shirt."

Roger Sollenberger of Salon: "Weeks after Michigan prosectors hit the pair of right-wing provocateurs with charges in an alleged voter-intimidation robocall scheme, Jacob Wohl, 22, and Jack Burkman, 58, have been indicted by an Ohio grand jury on separate felony counts. Local prosecutors charged Wohl and Burkman each with eight counts of felony telecommunications fraud and seven counts of felony bribery for allegedly sowing false fears about voting by mail in targeted minority communities in Ohio, plus multiple other states. Warrants were issued for the pair's arrest, who face up to 18 years and six months in prison if convicted." --s

Nina Schtick of UnHerd: "It is no exaggeration to say that soon almost everything we see or hear online will be synthetic -- that is, generated or manipulated by AI.... Some experts estimate that within 5-7 years, 90% of all video content online will be synthetic. Before long, anyone with a smartphone will be able to make Hollywood level AI-generated content... [T]his technology has a dark side. It will, inevitably, be misused, and for that most obvious of male-driven reasons. It was reported last week that the messaging app Telegram is hosting a 'deepfake pornography bot,' which allows users to generate images of naked women. According to the report, there are already over 100,000 such images being circulated in public Telegram channels.... The women who appear to feature in this cache of publicly-shared fake porn are mostly private individuals rather than celebrities. More disturbingly, the images also include deepfake nudes of underage girls." --s

~~~~~~~~~~

DO NOT MAIL YOUR BALLOT. Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "For millions of voters who considered using the U.S. Postal Service to cast their ballot for the Nov. 3 election, it's time to find a backup plan, election administration and postal experts say. With the presidential election a week away, mail service continues to lag -- especially in certain swing states that could decide control of the White House. Nationally, 85.6 percent of all first-class mail was delivered on time the week of Oct. 16; that's the 14th consecutive week the on-time rate sat below 90 percent for mail that should reach its destination within three days.... Joe Biden's campaign internally switched its language to voters this week, encouraging them to submit ballots in person or at a secure drop box, according to campaign officials, rather than through the mail. 'If you haven't requested a mail ballot yet, it's too late,' said David Becker, executive director at the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. 'I don't care about the legal deadline; it's just too late in terms of getting it processed, getting it mailed to you and you being able to fill it out and return it.... At this point, if you haven't requested a mail ballot yet, plan to vote in person and vote early, if possible.' Voters who requested but have yet to receive a mail ballot should vote in person, Becker said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ NBC News has important info for each state where you can still act to plan your vote. --s ~~~

Given Supreme Court rulings on mail ballots and Trump's effort to undermine the Postal Service, I strongly suggest that you now vote in person - try early voting or find a drop box. Protect your health but don't let anyone deprive you of your most precious right. Have a plan. -- Eric Holder, in a tweet, Tuesday ~~~

~~~ Caroline O'Donavan of BuzzFeed News: "... everyone from former US attorney general Eric Holder to John Legend is urging people not to vote by mail after [Tuesday].... The rules for voting by mail are different in every state, which makes blanket advice difficult.... 'There are states where the postmark is what matters,' said John Fortier, director of governmental studies at the Bipartisan Policy Center" ~~~

~~~ Colby Bermel of Politico: "A federal judge on Tuesday night ordered the U.S. Postal Service to reverse limitations on mai collection imposed by Trump-backed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, giving the agency until Wednesday morning to inform workers of the court's changes as more mail-in ballots continue to flood in. In a highly detailed order, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District Court for the District of Columbia granted an emergency motion by plaintiffs against ... Donald Trump to enforce and monitor compliance with Sullivan's previous injunction tied to USPS services. No later than 9 a.m. Wednesday, the judge said, agency workers must be told that a USPS leader's July guidelines limiting late and extra trips to collect mail are rescinded. 'USPS personnel are instructed to perform late and extra trips to the maximum extent necessary to increase on-time mail deliveries, particularly for Election Mail,' Sullivan wrote." ~~~

~~~ Eric Larson of Bloomberg News in Al Jazeera: "Delivery delays during an election can't be unlawful, because the Constitution doesn't guarantee states any particular level of service when it comes to mail-in ballots, the U.S. Postal Service told a federal judge [Tuesday]. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and ... Donald Trump are seeking dismissal of a lawsuit brought by New York and other states that claim disruptive changes at the USPS over the summer are violating the Elections Clause of the Constitution by putting election mail at risk.... A judge handling another USPS case ruled in September that it was 'easy to conclude' that DeJoy's changes were intended to disrupt and challenge the legitimacy of the coming election, and that voter disenfranchisement was 'at the heart' of the policies."

Michael McDonald of the University of Florida is keeping track of early voting -- both mail-in and in-person -- state-by-state and, where available, by party affiliation. Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Presidential Race, Etc.

The New York Times' live election updates Tuesday are here.: "With a week left until Election Day, the flood of people moved to cast their ballots early has grown so strong that the early vote has already exceeded half of the number of votes that were counted during the entire 2016 presidential election, according to data compiled by the United States Elections Project. The coronavirus pandemic, the fear of postal delays and the passions inspired by the presidential candidates ... have all contributed to the record early vote. As of Tuesday afternoon more than 69.5 million Americans had already mailed in their ballots or voted early in person, according to the data compiled by the project. That is 50.4 percent of the total number of votes that were counted during the entire 2016 election."

Jonathan Martin & Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "Joseph R. Biden Jr. reached for political history on Tuesday as he swept into a red-state town with deep Democratic resonance and made a direct pitch to voters who flocked to President Trump in 2016, urging them to give him a chance to 'heal' the country after a year of crippling crises. One week from Election Day, Mr. Biden chose to expend precious political time and capital on Georgia, a state that hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992.... Delivering a speech intended to be part of his closing argument to voters in the homestretch, Mr. Biden traveled to the onetime retreat of Franklin D. Roosevelt, making a let-us-come-together appeal that evoked the sort of common purpose that sustained the country during the Great Depression and World War II and that Mr. Biden said was needed to overcome the coronavirus. With language that at times sounded more like that of a president-elect than a candidate, Mr. Biden attempted to portray himself as a man of destiny. 'God and history have called us to this moment and to this mission,' he said, citing Ecclesiastes. 'The Bible tells us there's a time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to heal. This is that time.'" ~~~

~~~ Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Joe Biden visited Georgia on Tuesday for the first time since clinching the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, and he promised to deliver 'hope and healing' to the nation's soul as the race for the White House nears the finish line. Biden delivered a message calling for bipartisanship at a time of turmoil, wrapping himself in the legacy of former President Franklin Roosevelt on a grassy mountaintop not far from where the New Deal Democrat once had his private retreat." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: In a campaign speech in Orlando, Florida, President "Obama seemed to be making a concerted effort to troll the troller-in-chief president. He attacked Trump in very personal ways, his comments often dripping with incredulity.... 'What's his closing argument? That people are too focused on covid. He said this at one of his rallies: "Covid, covid, covid," he's complaining,' Obama said.... 'He's jealous of covid's media coverage.'... 'I mean, listen, our president of the United States retweeted a post that claimed that the Navy SEALs didn't actually kill bin Laden. Think about that. And we act like, "Well, okay." It's not okay. I mean, we've gotten so numb to what is bizarre behavior.' Obama also turned to Trump's jobs record, which he compared unfavorably with his own.... The message seemed to be consumed by one particularly attentive cable news viewer. 'Now @FoxNews is playing Obama's no crowd, fake speech for Biden, a man he could barely endorse because he couldn't believe he won,' Trump said, before responding to another of Obama's attacks on his taxes." ~~~

~~~ Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "... nothing Mr. Obama has said during the Trump era compares with his gleeful slag-heaping of scorn upon Mr. Trump in the closing days of the 2020 campaign, part of a two-week burst of activity that will culminate in a joint rally with Mr. Biden being planned for this coming weekend, according to Democratic officials.... He has been eager to reverse roles with his loyal helpmate, these allies and associates say, and willing to throw punches that would undermine the former vice president's image as a national healer if Mr. Biden took the swing himself.... Mr. Obama is clearly relishing the chance to strike back at Mr. Trump, who has not only baited him for years but has also tried to eradicate his legacy, policy by policy." Mrs. McC: Former Republican President George W. Bush did not campaign for Donald Trump.

Tom Hamburger & Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "Twenty former U.S. attorneys -- all of them Republicans -- on Tuesday publicly called President Trump 'a threat to the rule of law in our country,' and urged that he be replaced in November with his Democratic opponent, former vice president Joe Biden. 'The President has clearly conveyed that he expects his Justice Department appointees and prosecutors to serve his personal and political interests,' said the former prosecutors in an open letter. They accused Trump of taking 'action against those who have stood up for the interests of justice.'" U.S. attorneys are political appointees. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Wall Street Hopes for a Blue Wave. Ben White of Politico: "... Donald Trump loves to say that if Joe Biden wins the White House, stocks will crash, retirement accounts will vanish and an economic depression 'the likes of which you've never seen' will engulf the nation. But much of Wall Street is already betting on a Biden win.... Traders in recent weeks have been piling into bets that a 'blue wave' election, in which Democrats also seize the Senate, will produce an economy-juicing blast of fresh fiscal stimulus of $3 trillion or more that carries the U.S. past the coronavirus crisis and into a more normal environment for markets. Far from panicking at the prospect of a Biden win, Wall Street CEOs, traders and investment managers now mostly say they would be fine with a change in the White House that reduces the Trump noise, lowers the threat of further trade wars and ensures a continuation of the government spending they've seen in recent years." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Mrs. McCrabbie: I watched a few seconds of Melanie speaking somewhere Tuesday. She said Donald was keeping America safe from the coronavirus while Democrats were wasting time impeaching Donald. Somehow it sounds even more bizarre in a Slovenian accent. MEANWHILE, husband Donald was running around states he's losing yelling "Covid! Covid! Covid! Fake news pays more attention to a fucking virus than my Nobel Peace Prize!" Donald held three super-spreader events yesterday. ~~~

~~~ AND Trump Is Appealing to "Housewives." Dominick Mastrangelo of the Hill: "In an appeal to female voters one week before Election Day, President Trump promised to get 'husbands back to work' as part of economic recovery efforts directed toward states rebounding from the coronavirus pandemic. 'Your husbands, they want to get back to work,' Trump said during a campaign rally in Lansing, Mich., on Tuesday. 'We're getting your husbands back to work. And everybody wants it.'" Mrs. McC: As to what Trump thinks of working women, see the stories linked below on his attacks on Lesley Stahl & Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

David Coldewey of Tech Crunch: "President Trump's campaign website was briefly and partially hacked Tuesday afternoon as unknown adversaries took over the 'About' page and replaced it with what appeared to be a scam to collect cryptocurrency. There is no indication, despite the hackers' claims, that 'full access to trump and relatives' was achieved or 'most internal and secret conversations strictly classified information' were exposed.... 'the world has had enough of the fake-news spreaded daily by president donald j trump,' the new site read. 'it is time to allow the world to know truth.'" A New York Times story is here.

David Rothkopf in USA Today: "The 2020 election presents us with an existential choice. If we reelect this wannabe authoritarian, this puppet of foreign autocrats, he and they will be not just validated but empowered. Whatever Trump's motivation, we have seen him remake our judiciary and undermine our system of justice. He has degraded America on the global stage and profoundly weakened us. All that is the price of his betrayals to date. Should he be given four more years to carry them forward, our democracy might never recover. We must see him for the traitor he is and see that because of the high office he held and his complete absence of character or care for the country, he may well be the worst of all those who have betrayed America in the past." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Paul Campos in LG&$: "... if the Dems take the trifecta there's a short window available to treat the Republican party, and all its works, and all its pomps, with the extreme prejudice it has so fully earned. They're doing everything they can to flat out steal this election, and if they fail, they must NOT be allowed to be in a position to do it again. That means fundamental reforms of both the electoral and judicial systems. Those reforms will of course be met by squeals of outrage from Republicans themselves, but they will also be resisted by the many many Even the Liberal types, who will claim that the fact that a[n] authoritarian party, trending strongly fascistic and theocratic, didn't manage to actually steal the election after all means that ... wait for it . . . The System Works. No it doesn't. No system that elected Donald Trump and his congressional enablers, and kept them in office for four years, 'works.' Liberal democracy may survive for the moment, but it very well may not the next time. And there will be a next time, more than soon enough."

The first thing Justice Barrett did was to participate in a campaign event at the White House for the president, eight days before an election that he has explicitly said he expects will turn on her vote. -- Chris Hayes of MSNBC in a tweet (thanks to RAS for the link)

I wonder if the reason Clarence Thomas, instead of John Roberts, swore in Barrett was that Roberts -- unlike Thomas & Barrett -- knew better than to show up wearing a MAGA cap. -- Mrs. McCrabbie

Florida. Matt Dixon of Politico: "Three counties in Florida's conservative Panhandle are limiting early voting hours ahead of Hurricane Zeta, which is expected to hit the region Wednesday. Escambia, Okaloosa and Santa Rosa counties are easy wins for ... Donald Trump. Escambia County, the site of a Trump rally just last week, supported the president with 60 percent of the vote in 2016. Trump won 74 percent of the vote in Santa Rosa County and 71 percent in Okaloosa County."

Texas. Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "The Texas Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a ruling backing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's (R) order to limit the state's counties to one mail-in ballot drop box each, a policy that will largely impact larger, urban and more Democratic counties. The court wrote in a 17-page ruling that a decision from a lower court 'erred' in blocking the order and that the policy would 'not disenfranchise anyone.'" Mrs. McC: "... all members of the Texas Supreme Court are Republicans."

Wisconsin. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Election officials in Wisconsin are redoubling efforts to convince voters to return their mail ballots as soon as possible after the Supreme Court ruled Monday night that ballots received after Election Day cannot be counted, no matter when they were mailed. As of Tuesday, voters in the key battleground state had returned more than 1.45 million of the 1.79 million absentee ballots they had requested so far requested -- a return rate of more than 80 percent. But that means that nearly 327,000 absentee ballots had not yet been returned. And voters continue to request ballots -- under state law, they have until 5 p.m. Thursday to seek one, a deadline state officials have warned is probably too late for voters to receive and return a ballot by mail before the deadline." ~~~

~~~ From the New York Times' live election updates Tuesday, linked above: "The Wisconsin Democratic Party and its supporters had been on a mail-voting education crusade since the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, advising people how to request, fill out and return absentee ballots. Now, in the wake of a Supreme Court decision Monday disqualifying absentee ballots that are received by election officials after Election Day, the party has changed course, alerting voters not to put ballots in the mail but to return them to their election clerk's office or use drop boxes. The party is in search of missing absentee ballots. Of about 1,706,771 Wisconsin voters who requested absentee ballots, 1,344,535 have returned them. That means 366,236 ballots are still out there." ~~~

~~~ ** Mark Stern of Slate: "On Monday night, Justice Brett Kavanaugh released a radical and brazenly partisan opinion that dashed any hopes he, as the Supreme Court's new median justice, might slow-walk the court's impending conservative revolution, while also threatening the integrity of next week's election. In an 18-page lecture, the justice cast doubt on the legitimacy of many mail ballots and endorsed the most sinister component of Bush v. Gore. America's new median justice is not a friend to democracy, and we may pay the price for Barrett's confirmation in just eight days.... Kavanaugh's opinion ... is frankly terrifying.... Kavanaugh ... [argued that] ... 'absentee ballots flow[ing] in after election day [could] potentially flip the results of an election.'... [But] there is no result to 'flip' because there is no result to overturn until all valid ballots are counted." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: See also my comment yesterday regarding the confederate Supremes' "philosophy of jurisprudence" & Akhilleus' commentary in yesterday's thread. Here's the kicker that unites our two comments, via Stern: "George W. Bush's 2000 election legal team -- which included Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Roberts -- argued during that contested election that ballots arriving late and without postmarks, which were thought to benefit Bush, must be counted in Florida."

When Trump Targets Women Doing Their Jobs, It Works. Meaghan Ellis in Alternet: "The CBS News network has reportedly hired full-time security for '60 Minutes' correspondent Lesley Stah[l] following a death threat one of her family members received after her exclusive interview with ... Donald Trump. The network's decision came shortly after an unidentified suspect called Stahl and threatened her and her family saying 'something about neo-Nazis,' according to TMZ. The mysterious call came just hours before Trump leaked his own copy of the interview via Facebook." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As you recall, after Trump began attacking Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for doing her job of trying to protect residents of her state from Covid-19, a gang of terrorist white supremacists developed an active plan to kidnap & possibly murder her. Not even slightly chastened by what he had wrought, Trump is continuing to attack Whitmer, as recently as yesterday (Tuesday). ~~~

     ~~~ In Fact, Trump Said the Planned Attack on Whitmer Was Necessarily a Problem. Maegan Vazquez & Nikki Carvajal of CNN: "... Donald Trump repeatedly attacked Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, during his rally in Lansing, Michigan, on Tuesday, at one point taking credit for the FBI thwarting a plot to kidnap her and then immediately downplaying the actual threat that had been posed to Whitmer. 'Your governor, I don't thinks she likes me too much,' Trump joked, prompting a loud reaction from the crowd. 'Hey, hey, hey hey,' he told the audience, 'I'm the one, it was our people that helped her out with her problem. I mean, we'll have to see if it's a problem. Right? People are entitled to say maybe it was a problem, maybe it wasn't,' he added. 'It was our people -- my people, our people that helped her out. And then she blamed me for it....' Trump has repeatedly attacked Whitmer before and after the news of the plot. Whitmer wrote in the Atlantic on Tuesday that every time he does so, threats surge. 'Every time the president ramps up this violent rhetoric, every time he fires up Twitter to launch another broadside against me, my family and I see a surge of vicious attacks sent our way," she wrote. "This is no coincidence, and the President knows it....'"

** David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "Since his first month in office, Trump has used his power to direct millions from U.S. taxpayers -- and from his political supporters -- into his own businesses. The Washington Post has sought to compile examples of this spending through open records requests and a lawsuit. In all, he has received at least $8.1 million from these two sources since he took office, those documents and publicly available records show. The president brought taxpayer money to his businesses simply by bringing himself. He's visited his hotels and clubs more than 280 times now.... And in doing so, he has turned those properties into magnets for GOP events.... In the case of the government, Trump's visits turned it into a captive customer, newly revealed documents show. What the government needed from Trump's properties, it had to buy from Trump's company.... Since 2017, Trump's company has charged taxpayers for hotel rooms, ballrooms, cottages, rental houses, golf carts, votive candles, floating candles, candelabras, furniture moving, resort fees, decorative palm trees, strip steak, chocolate cake, breakfast buffets, $88 bottles of wine and $1,000 worth of liquor for White House aides. And water.... Much spending remains hidden, because some federal agencies -- including the State Department, and the White House itself -- have declined to release records." ~~~

~~~ David Enrich, et al., of the New York Times: In 2008, the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago "became another disappointment in a portfolio filled with them. Construction lagged. Condos proved hard to sell. Retail space sat vacant. Yet for Mr. Trump and his company, the Chicago experience also turned out to be something else: the latest example of his ability to strong-arm major financial institutions and exploit the tax code to cushion th blow of his repeated business failures. The president's federal income tax records, obtained by The New York Times, show for the first time that, since 2010, his lenders have forgiven about $287 million in debt that he failed to repay. The vast majority was related to the Chicago project.... When the project encountered problems, he tried to walk away from his huge debts.... Rather than warring with a notoriously litigious headline-seeking client, lenders cut Mr. Trump slack.... Ultimately, Mr. Trump's lenders forgave much of what he owed.... [That] normally would have generated a big tax bill, since the Internal Revenue Service treats canceled debts as income. Yet as has often happened in his long career, Mr. Trump appears to have paid almost no federal income tax on that money, in part because of large losses in his other businesses...."

Judge Laughs Trump, DOJ Out of Court. Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Tuesday rejected the Justice Department's bid to make the U.S. government the defendant in a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says President Trump raped her decades ago, paving the way for the case to again proceed. In a 59-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote that Trump did not qualify as a government 'employee' under federal law, nor was he acting 'within the scope of his employment' when he denied during interviews in 2019 that he had raped journalist E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan department store during the 1990s.... If the judge had done what the Justice Department asked, government lawyers could then have invoked the notion of 'sovereign immunity' -- which prohibits lawsuits against the government -- to end the case." The New York Times' story is here. A CNN story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

David Folkenflik of NPR: "A regulatory 'firewall' intended to protect Voice of America and its affiliated newsrooms from political interference in their journalism was swept aside late Monday night by the chief executive of the federal agency which oversees the government's international broadcasters. Michael Pack, a Trump appointee who assumed leadership of the U.S. Agency for Global Media in June..., argued they had interfered with his mandate 'to support the foreign policy of the United States.' The move set off a firestorm. 'I am stunned,' former Voice of America director Amanda Bennett told NPR early Tuesday morning. 'It removes the one thing that makes Voice of America distinct from broadcasters of repressive regimes.'" Mrs. McC: Sorry, Amanda, the Trump administration is a "repressive regime." Pack's move is a signal (and not the first he has sent) to make that crystal-clear. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "The United States has recorded a record of more than 500,000 new cases over the past week, as states and cities resort to stricter new measures to contain the virus that is again raging across the country, especially the American heartland.... The United States reported more than 74,300 new cases of the coronavirus on Monday, pushing the country's daily average over the past week above 71,000, the most in any seven-day stretch of the pandemic. Across the country, the outlook continues to worsen. More than 20 states are reporting case numbers at or near record levels." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Brianna Ehley of Politico: "The White House's science policy office on Tuesday ranked 'ending the Covid-19 pandemic' atop the list of ... Donald Trump's top first-term accomplishments, even as the country registers record amounts of infections and hospitals fill up again. The list, included in a press release from the Office of Science and Technology Policy credits the administration for taking 'decisive actions to engage scientists and health professionals in academia, industry, and government to understand, treat, and defeat the disease.' It's the latest inaccurate claim from the administration on the severity of the pandemic, which Trump has downplayed throughout his reelection campaign, and as Vice President Mike Pence's office is dealing with an outbreak. Trump, who insists the country is 'rounding the turn' on the coronavirus, continues to hold packed campaign rallies and attacks the news media for focusing on surging infections." Mrs. McC: Also on the "science" office's list of top Trump accomplishments: developing a bleach elixir for the virus & proving that windmills cause cancer.

Christopher Flavelle & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "The Trump administration has recently removed the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation's premier scientific agency, installed new political staff who have questioned accepted facts about climate change and imposed stricter controls on communications at the agency. The moves threaten to stifle a major source of objective United States government information about climate change that underpins federal rules on greenhouse gas emissions and offer an indication of the direction the agency will take if President Trump wins re-election. An early sign of the shift came last month, when Erik Noble, a former White House policy adviser who had just been appointed NOAA's chief of staff, removed Craig McLean, the agency's acting chief scientist. Mr. McLean had sent some of the new political appointees a message that asked them to acknowledge the agency's scientific integrity policy, which prohibits manipulating research or presenting ideologically driven findings.... Replacing Mr. McLean, who remains at the agency, was Ryan Maue, a former researcher for the libertarian Cato Institute who has criticized climate scientists for what he has called unnecessarily dire predictions."

Katie Thomas of the New York Times: "Vaccine experts peppered officials at the Food and Drug Administration with a range of questions on Thursday about its guidelines for approving a coronavirus vaccine, pushing the agency on whether it should wait longer to collect more safety data and whether an emergency approval could jeopardize the outcome of the broader clinical trials.... The agency has said that it will ask the panel for its opinion before approving any coronavirus vaccine for emergency use. The agency typically, but not always, follows the advice of its outside experts.... Several of the experts said that they believed the agency should ask the companies to wait for more safety data. They said the agency's current guidelines, which require two months of safety data after a volunteer has received the last dose of a vaccine, were not good enough. Collecting longer-term data would allow them to evaluate potential risks, such as whether immunity to the virus wanes after a few months, or whether rare side effects emerge."

Patrick Wintour & Tobi Thomas of the Guardian: "China appears to have comprehensively lost the international battle for hearts and minds over its handling of coronavirus with most people believing it was responsible for the start of the outbreak and was not transparent about the problem at the outset. The findings come from the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project, a survey of 26,000 people in 25 countries, designed with the Guardian.... Overall, the poll suggests there is a receptive global audience for the next US president, if he chooses, to construct an international alliance to challenge China's growing political dominance, and to question the moral values of its leadership. There is no sense in the findings, however, that the US would be able to exploit its handling of the crisis to take on that leadership role." --s

AFP: "US senators have sought to declare that China is committing genocide against Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking Muslims, a step that could increase pressure on Beijing over the plight of an estimated one million-plus people being held in detention camps. The text states that China's campaign 'against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and members of other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region constitutes genocide'. The resolution was introduced on Tuesday by senators across the political spectrum, although it is unlikely to move immediately as the Senate is out of session until after next week's election." --s

Guardian: "Joe Biden has voiced support for Belarus's opposition in its general strike against President Alexander Lukashenko, saying the embattled leader's reign was illegitimate. Biden ... promised if he wins to 'significantly expand' sanctions alongside European allies against 'Lukashenko's henchmen'." --s

Mark Morales, et al., of CNN: "Protesters took to the streets and bands of looters broke into businesses for a second night after officers in Philadelphia shot and killed a Black man who was holding a knife in an encounter that city officials say raises questions. One group marched peacefully for much of the night, chanting Walter Wallace Jr.'s name and saying, 'Whose streets? Our streets.' But the protest turned violent near a police precinct when the large crowd encountered a handful of officers. Several people in the crowd threw rocks, light bulbs, or bricks at the police. One officer was injured, according to a CNN crew at the scene. There was looting by other groups of people in another part of the city, according to a police tweet and video from a CNN affiliate's helicopter." ~~~

     ~~~ Robert Klemko, et al., of the Washington Post: "On the second night of mass demonstrations over the fatal police shooting of a 27-year-old Black man, about 1,000 protesters marched through the streets of West Philadelphia on Tuesday demanding justice for Walter Wallace Jr. Following a smaller protest that turned destructive on Monday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) authorized the National Guard to deploy troops Tuesday to help police protect property and quell unrest in the state's largest city. Monday's demonstrations and looting left shops damaged and at least 30 officers injured, including one hospitalized with a broken leg after being struck by a truck. On Tuesday, police and protesters clashed again, but officers, aided by National Guardsmen, took a more aggressive tack, filling the streets with lines of riot cops who stopped marchers and made several arrests earlier in the evening."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Adam Morton of the Guardian: "Australian scientists have discovered a detached reef more than 500 metres high -- taller than the Empire State Building -- at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef. The 'blade-like' vertical reef about 130km off Cape York, Australia's north-eastern tip, was found during a 3D seabed mapping exercise conducted from a ship owned by the Californian non-profit Schmidt Ocean Institute.... [Tom Bridge from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University and the expedition's principal investigator said] 'What it highlights is how little we know about a lot of the ocean, even the Great Barrier Reef.' The marine park is 344,000 square kilometres -- bigger than many European countries – and only about 6 or 7% of that is typical shallow-water reefs. 'We know more about the surface of the moon than we know about what lies in the depths beyond our coastlines.'" --s

News Ledes

Weather Channel: "Hurricane Zeta has made landfall as a strong Category 2 near Cocodrie, Louisiana on Terrebonne Bay. Zeta is bringing life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and heavy rainfall to southern Louisiana. Damaging wind gusts will persist far inland across portions of the South, and widespread rainfall will also affect a wide area of the East through late week as Zeta interacts with another weather system."

New York Times: "... on their eighth consecutive trip to the postseason, the Los Angeles Dodgers finally became champions, again. They beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 3-1, in Game 6 of the World Series on Tuesday at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, as [Mookie] Betts hit a double and a home run and scored twice to help the storied franchise end 32 years of disappointment.