1. The Borowitz Report: Kavanaugh Supports Cutoff For Vote-Counting But Not for Drinking

In an opinion that sparked controversy in legal circles, Brett Kavanaugh wrote that there should be a cutoff for vote-counting but not for drinking.

The Supreme Court Justice wrote that, while ballots received after midnight on Election Night should not be counted, drink orders placed after closing time at a bar should always be honored.

“While the Constitution does not guarantee the right to vote, it clearly enshrines the right to drink,” Kavanaugh wrote. “If a patron is seated at a bar at midnight, drinking should be allowed to continue for hours, if not days, until drinking has been completed.”’ https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/

2. Trump Supporters Now Want to Lock Biden Up

A loud chant of “LOCK HIM UP” broke out at Trump’s rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, as Trump attacked Joe Biden. VIDEO https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1320751090309222400

3. FBI Sits on Report Detailing White-Supremacist Threat

The FBI has failed to produce a legally required report detailing the scope of white supremacist and other domestic terrorism, despite mounting concerns that the upcoming election could spark far-right violence.

According to a key House committee chairman, that leaves the country in the dark about what the FBI concedes is America’s most urgent terrorist threat, as well as the resources the U.S. government is devoting to fight it. https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-sits-on-report-detailing-white-supremacist-terror-threat

4. ‘A mass exodus’: HHS staffers jumping ship amid pandemic, fears of Trump loss

At least 27 political appointees have exited the embattled Health and Human Services department since the start of the Covid-19 crisis in February, according to a POLITICO review, and senior leaders are bracing for dozens more officials to depart swiftly if President Donald Trump loses re-election.

Such a wave of departures would leave only a shell staff shepherding the department through a uniquely challenging winter of coronavirus outbreaks and drug and vaccine authorizations until Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, according to interviews with 17 current and former HHS officials, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/26/employees-leaving-hhs-432115

5. Rallies Are the Core of Trump’s Campaign, and a Font of Lies and Misinformation

Two minutes and 28 seconds into a campaign rally on a recent Saturday night in Janesville, Wis., President Trump delivered his first lie.

“When you look at our numbers compared to what’s going on in Europe and other places,” Mr. Trump said about the coronavirus raging across the United States, “we’re doing well.”

The truth? America has more cases and deaths per capita than any major country in Europe but Spain and Belgium. The United States has just 4 percent of the world’s population but accounts for almost a quarter of the global deaths from Covid-19. On Oct. 17, the day of Mr. Trump’s rally in Janesville, cases were rising to record levels across much of the country.

Over the course of the next 87 minutes, the president made another 130 false or inaccurate statements. Many were entirely made up. Others were casual misstatements of simple facts, some clearly intended to mislead. He lied about his own record and that of his opponent. He made wild exaggerations that violate even the pliable limits of standard political hyperbole. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/us/politics/trump-rallies.html

6. Ballrooms, candles and luxury cottages: During Trump’s term, millions of government and GOP dollars have flowed to his properties

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, making them a familiar backdrop for his presidency. And in doing so, he has turned those properties into magnets for GOP events, including glitzy fundraisers for his own reelection campaign, where big donors go to see and be seen.

But documents show that visits by Trump, his family and his supporters have turned the government and the Republican Party into regular customers for the family business.

So the more they went, the more he got. 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.

Trump’s campaign and affiliated fundraising committees paid at least $5.6 million out to his companies. The two committees spent nearly $1 million from Sept. 1 through Oct. 14, including $97,000 for lodging at Trump hotels and nearly $800,000 for catering and ballroom rentals, records show. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ballrooms-candles-and-luxury-cottages-during-trumps-term-millions-of-government-and-gop-dollars-have-flowed-to-his-propertiesmar-a-lago-charged-the-government-3-apiece-for-glasses-of-water-for-trump-and-the-japanese-leader/2020/10/27/186f20a2-1469-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html

7. Fox News Is Covering Hunter Biden More Than The 2016 WikiLeaks Emails

Fox News is giving more airtime to the unverified Hunter Biden emails than it did to the hacked emails from Mr. Podesta in 2016, according to an analysis from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies disinformation. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/technology/fox-news-hunter-biden.html

8. Trump doesn’t believe counting ballots after election is lawful

President Trump falsely claimed that it was against the law to count mail-in ballots after Election Day.

Said Trump: “It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on Nov. 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate, and I don’t believe that’s by our laws. I don’t believe that.” https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1321142155721793539

9. Justice Kavanaugh Parrots Trump in Ominous Anti-Mail-In Ballot Wisconsin Ruling

We’ve come to expect President Donald Trump’s relentless attempts to baselessly undermine the legitimacy of mail-in voting—but it’s something else when it comes from a Supreme Court justice.

On Monday, the Supreme Court upheld an appeals court decision that blocked extending Wisconsin’s deadline for absentee ballots by six days. In his notes explaining his decision, Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered a very Trumpian warning that any votes that came in after Election Day could be viewed as illegitimate. He wrote: “States want to avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after Election Day and potentially flip the results of an election.”

Justice Elena Kagan used her dissenting opinion in the case to rebuke the Trump appointee, writing: “There are no results to ‘flip’ until all valid votes are counted. And nothing could be more ‘suspicio[us]’ or ‘improp[er]’ than refusing to tally votes once the clock strikes 12 on Election Night.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/justice-brett-kavanaugh-parrots-trump-in-ominous-anti-mail-in-ballot-ruling-in-wisconsin-decision-footnote

10. Voice of America Targets Its Own Journalists' Independence

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.

"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.” https://www.npr.org/2020/10/27/928118147/u-s-agency-targets-its-own-journalists-independence

11. Tumult at home, ailing alliances abroad: Why Trump’s America has been a ‘gift’ to Putin

Under President Trump, the United States has abandoned international climate and nuclear arms agreements. It has announced its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, questioned the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and antagonized stalwart allies like Germany.

America’s past presidents have long promoted democracy, human rights and the rule of law abroad, yet Trump instead has waged an assault on those values at home, where he has weakened institutions, shredded norms and declared without evidence that the upcoming election will be “rigged.”

America’s moral authority also has been undercut by the devastatingly high death toll and wrenching economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with the racial reckoning that has convulsed the country. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-russia-putin/2020/10/24/4edb462e-13bb-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html

12. Trump issues sweeping order for tens of thousands of career federal employees to lose civil service protections

Trump last week fired his biggest broadside yet against the federal bureaucracy by issuing an executive order that would remove job security from an estimated tens of thousands of civil servants and dramatically remake the government.

The directive, issued late Wednesday, strips long-held civil service protections from employees whose work involves policymaking, allowing them to be dismissed with little cause or recourse, much like the political appointees who come and go with each administration.

Federal scientists, attorneys, regulators, public health experts and many others in senior roles would lose rights to due process and in some cases, union representation, at agencies across the government. The White House declined to say how many jobs would be swept into a class of employees with fewer civil service rights, but civil service experts and union leaders estimated anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands in a workforce of 2.1 million. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-order-federal-civil-service/2020/10/22/c73783f0-1481-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html

13. House Republicans push inquiry into Biden’s use of Amtrak on trip through Ohio and Pennsylvania

During a campaign season in which President Trump has been criticized for using federal resources for his political benefit, House Republicans on Wednesday said they are leading an inquiry into Joe Biden’s use of an Amtrak train to campaign last month.

But in its disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, the Biden campaign reported spending $265,000 on the train charter. Amtrak says that the starting rate for a charter is $30,000, and that no discount was given. “We can’t provide the cost, but can share that we did make money, as we aim to do for any charter,” Amtrak said in a statement.

Last time we checked, no one can charter the White House South Lawn for a political convention,” spokesman Matt Hill said in a statement. “Instead of wasting time on political stunts, congressional Republicans should stop ignoring Donald Trump’s blatant abuses of taxpayer money and government resources to enrich himself and his businesses.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/21/house-republicans-push-inquiry-into-bidens-use-amtrak-trip-through-ohio-pennsylvania/

14. Rudy Giuliani faces questions after compromising scene in new Borat film

The reputation of Rudy Giuliani could be set for a further blow with the release of highly embarrassing footage in Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to Borat.

In the film, released on Friday, the former New York mayor and current personal attorney to Donald Trump is seen reaching into his trousers and apparently touching his genitals while reclining on a bed in the presence of the actor playing Borat’s daughter, who is posing as a TV journalist.

Following an obsequious interview for a fake conservative news program, the pair retreat at her suggestion for a drink to the bedroom of a hotel suite, which is rigged with concealed cameras.

After she removes his microphone, Giuliani, 76, can be seen lying back on the bed, fiddling with his untucked shirt and reaching into his trousers. They are then interrupted by Borat who runs in and says: “She’s 15. She’s too old for you.”

Giuliani has subsequently claimed that he was simply tucking in his shirt during the Borat scene in question. "The Borat video is a complete fabrication. I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment," the former New York City mayor wrote on Twitter. "At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate. If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise he is a stone-cold liar."

Baron Cohen responded in character as Borat, saying, "What was an innocent sexy time encounter between a consenting man and my 15-year-old daughter have been turned into something disgusting by fake news media - I warn you anyone else try this and Rudolph will not hesitate to reach into his legal briefs and whip out his subpoenas.” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/21/rudy-giuliani-faces-questions-after-compromising-scene-in-new-borat-film

15. Trump’s campaign made stops nationwide. Coronavirus cases surged in his wake in at least five places.

As Donald Trump jetted across the country holding campaign rallies during the past two months, he didn’t just defy state orders and federal health guidelines. He left a trail of coronavirus outbreaks in his wake. 

The president has participated in nearly three dozen rallies since mid-August, all but two at airport hangars. A USA TODAY analysis shows COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate than before after at least five of those rallies.

Together, those counties saw 1,500 more new cases in the two weeks following Trump’s rallies than the two weeks before – 9,647 cases, up from 8,069.  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/10/22/trumps-campaign-made-stops-nationwide-then-coronavirus-cases-surged/3679534001/

16. Forbes Estimates China Paid Trump At Least $5.4 Million Since He Took Office

Donald Trump, who declared “I don’t make money from China” in Thursday night’s presidential debate, has in fact collected millions of dollars from government-owned entities in China since he took office.

Forbes estimates that at least $5.4 million has flowed into the president’s business from a lease agreement involving a state-owned bank in Trump Tower. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/10/23/forbes-estimates-china-paid-trump-at-least-54-million-since-he-took-office-via-mysterious-trump-tower-lease/#79d0c8d5ed11

17. Lest We Forget The Horrors: A Catalog Of Trump’s Worst Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, And Crimes

The complete listing of 944 (so far) is at https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-complete-listing-so-far-atrocities-1-944

18. Trump is averaging more than 50 false or misleading claims a day

Down in the polls, the president has amped up his rhetoric and often scheduled two or three rallies, interviews with friendly TV hosts and repeated press availabilities in a single day. That has left us swamped and exhausted as we plow through tens of thousands of presidential words a day.

The Fact Checker also tracks Three- or Four-Pinocchio claims that Trump has said at least 20 times, earning him a Bottomless Pinocchio. There are now nearly 50 entries, with many of the new items either false claims about the novel coronavirus or about Joe Biden’s campaign policies.

The coronavirus pandemic has spawned a whole new genre of Trump’s falsehoods. The category in just six months has reached nearly 1,400 claims, more than double all of his tax claims. Trump’s false or misleading claims about the impeachment investigation — and the events surrounding it — contributed almost 1,200 entries to the database.

So far during his presidency, Trump’s most repeated claim — 407 times — is that the U.S. economy today is the best in history. He began making this claim in June 2018, and it quickly became one of his favorites. He’s been forced to adapt for the tough economic times, and doing so has made it even more fantastic. Whereas he used to say it was the best economy in U.S. history, he now often recalls that he achieved “the best economy in the history of the world.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/22/president-trump-is-averaging-more-than-50-false-or-misleading-claims-day/

19. Postal Service awards $5 million contract to Postmaster DeJoy's former company, XPO

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's former company landed a $5 million highway-shipping contract last month with the United States Postal Service.

DeJoy continues to own a multimillion-dollar stake in XPO Logistics as of early October. The $5 million deal is the first regular contract for a postal route that XPO Logistics has signed with the USPS in more than a year. XPO's last highway contract with the USPS was in December and was temporary. The one before that was signed in July 2019. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/usps-contract-xpo-logistics-postmaster-general-louis-dejoy-former-company/

20. Pollster Frank Luntz: If Trump defies polls again in 2020, 'my profession is done'

Pollster Frank Luntz told Fox News that if poll predictions are wrong about the 2020 election between President Trump and Joe Biden, his “profession is done” in terms of faith and confidence from the public.

Said Luntz: “Well, I hate to acknowledge it, because that’s my industry — at least partially. But the public will have no faith. No confidence. Right now — the biggest issue is the trust deficit. And pollsters did not do a good job in 2016. So if Donald Trump surprises people. If Joe Biden had a 5 or 6 point lead, my profession is done. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/522405-pollster-frank-luntz-if-trump-defies-polls-again-in-2020-my-profession-is-done

21. Senate Republicans Advance Another Trump Court Pick Rated ‘Not Qualified’

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to advance the lifetime federal judgeship nomination of Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, who earned an embarrassing “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-judicial-nominee-unqualified-kathryn-kimball-mizelle_n_5f91aa90c5b61c185f48092d

22. White House science office says Trump ended the COVID-19 pandemic

The White House science office listed "ending the COVID-19 pandemic" as the top accomplishment of President Trump's first term, even as the U.S. has set records for new daily infections and numerous hospitals across the country are stretched to their breaking points.  https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/523013-white-house-science-office-says-trump-ended-covid-pandemic-as-us-hits

23. Jared Kushner Is Already Planning To Launch A Trump-Themed News Network

In an indication that even these closest to Donald Trump aren’t assured that he’ll defeat Joe Biden, Jared Kushner is reportedly laying the groundwork for a Trump-branded information community.

According to Business Insider, “Jared Kushner has been talking up the idea of starting a Donald Trump-themed news outlet or some other media company, possibly as soon as after the election, five Republicans familiar with the discussions told Insider.”

The report added that some Trump advisers see Kushner’s transfer as an indication that he has his eyes on the exits with the election simply days away. https://pressaggregate.com/blog/2020/10/23/jared-kushner-is-already-planning-to-launch-a-trump-themed-news-network-after-the-election/

24. The US Eliminated Nearly 21,000 Election Day Polling Locations for 2020

Almost 21,000 Election Day polling places have been eliminated heading into the 2020 U.S. election, a drastic dip in voting locations driven by a heavy shift to mail voting, coronavirus-related consolidations, cost-cutting measures, and voter suppression.

Trump’s frontal assault on mail voting and attacks on the U.S. Post Office also have had a big impact. It’s led Republicans and some Democrats not to trust mail voting and pushing them toward in-person voting, both early and on Election Day. Republicans are voting by mail in much lower numbers than Democrats are, which could, ironically, create the kind of massive logjams in more GOP-leaning communities this year that traditionally have been more common in urban and suburban Democratic-leaning communities. https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkdenn/the-us-eliminated-nearly-21000-election-day-polling-locations-for-2020

25. Loan payments loom as Trump fights for his political future – and the future of his business

As Trump fights to save his political career, another key part of his life — his business — is also under growing stress.

In the next four years, Trump faces payment deadlines for more than $400 million in loans — just as the pandemic robs his businesses of customers and income, according to a Washington Post analysis of Trump’s finances. The bills coming due include loans on his Chicago hotel, his D.C. hotel and his Doral resort, all hit by a double whammy: Trump’s political career slowed their business, then the pandemic ground it down much further.

If Trump is reelected, these loan-saddled properties could present a significant conflict of interest: The president will owe enormous sums to banks that his government regulates. National security experts say Trump’s debts to Deutsche Bank, a German company, and foreign deals may constitute security risks if they make him vulnerable to influence by foreign governments. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-debt-election/2020/10/23/411ab8c2-0e33-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html

26. Why Can’t We See All of the Government’s Virus Data?

The Trump administration has declined to release critical data to outside public health experts that would enable them to devise strategies against the virus that has killed 223,000 Americans and counting.

Federal agencies have told us that since March they have been compiling basic data for each county and city on Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, the timing of social distancing mandates, testing, and other factors. This information can provide insights into how combinations of public health mandates — masks, social distancing and school closures, for instance — can keep the virus spread in check.

But the government, inexplicably, is not sharing all of its data. Researchers have asked federal officials many times for the missing information, but have been told it won’t be shared outside the government. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/opinion/coronavirus-data-secrecy.html

27. Fact-Checking the Final Presidential Debate

Here are fact checks from The New York Times, CNN, The AP, CBS News, ABC News, and NBC News.

28. Trump falsely claims Pennsylvanians 'can't go to church'

Donald Trump keeps falsely declaring that various states run by Democratic governors are "closed" or "shut down."

On Monday, when he made three speeches in Pennsylvania, Trump added an extra detail to his usual inaccurate criticism of pandemic restrictions imposed by Gov. Tom Wolf. He suggested that Wolf is preventing state residents from attending church.

Trump's claims were all part of his concerted effort to win the votes of Christians by suggesting -- while running against churchgoing Catholic Joe Biden -- that Democrats oppose religion and God. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/27/politics/trump-false-claim-pennsylvania-cant-go-to-church-fact-check/index.html

29. Michigan judge halts ban on open carry of guns at polling places

Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday that effectively halts Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's directive banning the open carry of guns near polling locations on Election Day. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/27/michigan-judge-halts-benson-ban-open-carry-guns-polling-places/3751933001/

30. Trump must remain defendant in rape defamation claim case filed by E. Jean Carroll

 Donald Trump must remain a defendant in a lawsuit that accuses him of defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll after she claimed he raped her in the mid-1990s, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected the Department of Justice’s last-minute effort to have the U.S. government replace Trump in the lawsuit.

The DOJ argued that the president was acting as a government employee when he said Carroll was lying and motivated by money with her allegation that he attacked her in a New York department store dressing room. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/27/trump-must-remain-defendant-in-e-jean-carroll-rape-defamation-suit.html

31. How Trump Maneuvered His Way Out of Trouble in Chicago

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.

How Mr. Trump found trouble in Chicago, and maneuvered his way out of it, is a case study in doing business the Trump way.

When the project encountered problems, he tried to walk away from his huge debts. For most individuals or businesses, that would have been a recipe for ruin. But tax-return data, other records and interviews show that rather than warring with a notoriously litigious and headline-seeking client, lenders cut Mr. Trump slack — exactly what he seemed to have been counting on. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/business/trump-chicago-taxes.html

32. All of the Trumpworld Figures Who’ve Been Arrested, Indicted, or Jailed

“I’m going to surround myself only with the best and most serious people,” Trump told The Washington Post in August 2015. “We want top of the line professionals.”

Since then, it’s become clear Trump has a dubious understanding of “best.” At least 18 shady figures in the president’s orbit have either been arrested or gone to jail since he took office, on charges from fraud to battery to child pornography. https://www.thedailybeast.com/all-of-the-trumpworld-figures-whove-been-arrested-indicted-or-jailed

33. Trump to strip protections from Tongass National Forest, one of the biggest intact temperate rainforests

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. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/10/28/trump-tongass-national-forest-alaska/

34. Trump’s attacks on political adversaries are often followed by threats to their safety

The CIA’s most endangered employee for much of the past year was not an operative on a mission abroad, but 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 to make sure it was safe.

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. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/threats-follow-trump-poliical-attacks/2020/10/28/c6dbce02-1792-11eb-82db-60b15c874105_story.html

35. As Election Nears, Trump Makes a Final Push Against Climate Science

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. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/climate/trump-election-climate-noaa.html

36. The GOP's monstrous math problem

Republicans, win or lose next week, face a big — and growing — math problem. They're relying almost exclusively on a shrinking demographic (white men), living in shrinking areas (small, rural towns), creating a reliance on people with shrinking incomes (white workers without college degrees) to survive.

You can't win elections without diversity, bigger population centers and sufficient money.

Republicans eyeing 2024 runs know the party's current demographic math may not work for Trump again — and certainly won't work for them. https://www.axios.com/republican-voters-rural-suburbs-future-trump-38bd5273-7584-4d69-834d-dc4d9e3c8ac8.html

 

37. Justice Thomas’ wife boosts unsupported claims against Biden

The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is using her Facebook page to amplify unsubstantiated claims of corruption by Joe Biden. https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-clarence-thomas-media-amy-coney-barrett-social-media-d7df89f52e02c13ec0d2784a54cdc7f3

38. The DAILY GRILL

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner sent a cease-and-desist letter to The Lincoln Project demanding that the anti-Trump group take down billboards in Times Square criticizing the White House’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The couple threatened to sue for “enormous compensatory and punitive damages.”

VERSUS

Jared & Ivanka don’t understand the 1st Amendment. @ProjectLincoln said in response to the threatened lawsuit said they “fully intend on making this civics lesson as painful as possible.”

 

Cases up because we TEST, TEST, TEST. A Fake News Media Conspiracy. Many young people who heal very fast. 99.9%. Corrupt Media conspiracy at all time high. On November 4th., topic will totally change. VOTE! — Trump

VERSUS

It's not true that the US is only seeing an increase in cases because the number of tests has increased. Trump also used this refrain during previous spikes in the number of cases; it was also false then. While the number of daily tests has indeed been rising, there is no doubt there has been an increase in the actual spread of the virus, not just that more cases are being captured. One telltale sign is that hospitalizations are also rising, setting records in some states. Also, the percentage of US tests coming back positive has also been rising since late September. And deaths have started to rise again, too, after the usual lag following the spike in cases. — Daniel Dale

 

Like so many Trump 2020 crowds before them, the crowd in Martinsburg brought back the rally-classic “lock her up” chant, referring to the president’s opponent in 2016. Upon hearing that familiar phrase, the president said that it is now being adapted for “Biden, because that’s a crime family, frankly.”-- NY Magazine 

VERSUS

Last month, the Manhattan district attorney’s office announced that Trump could be investigated for tax fraud based on “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization” that has been reported in the press. -- NY Magazine

39. From MEDIA MATTERS (They watch Fox News so you don't have to)

Fox promoted the flimsy allegations against Hunter for 6 hours and 42 minutes in segments in the first few days after the Post published its story -- three times as much coverage as given to the coronavirus pandemic over the same time period. Since then, the network’s coverage has steadily grown: The network has gleefully covered the allegations each day since the Post published -- anywhere between two and almost four hours a day. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-has-spent-over-25-hours-ny-posts-thin-hunter-biden-story-9-days

Trump’s Fox News propagandists have been urging him for months to fire FBI Director Christopher Wray because they consider him insufficiently willing to pursue their conspiracy theories in order to boost Trump’s political standing. In recent days, they’ve seized upon Wray’s handling of the smear stories of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden in calling for his removal. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-telling-trump-fire-fbi-director-not-helping-his-reelection-campaign

From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fox News has repeatedly pushed the debunked right-wing media conspiracy theory that the novel coronavirus was created in a virology lab in Wuhan, China. In September, Fox gave coverage to a dubious study by Dr. Li-Meng Yan, an exiled Hong Kong virologist who claimed on Tucker Carlson Tonight that the virus was intentionally created and released by the Chinese government as a bioweapon. CNN found “shoddy citations, questionable sourcing, and so many scientists who say it's bunk.” https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/cnn-investigation-discredits-bogus-bannon-linked-covid-19-research-hyped-fox

Fox News has obsessed over dubious revelations published in the New York Post concerning a hard drive containing allegedly scandalous emails from and images of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son for nearly 25 and a half hours, which included 420 segments, since October 14, according to a Media Matters review. Fox has attempted to tie the story to its extended smear campaign of Joe Biden’s handling of Ukraine during his time as vice president by connecting the elder Biden to long-debunked conspiracy theories about his son’s work at Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. The network also has re-upped long-debunked claims of anti-conservative bias from “big tech” in response to Twitter's efforts to halt initial shares of the Post story. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-has-spent-over-25-hours-ny-posts-thin-hunter-biden-story-9-days

Rudy Giuliani is trying to manipulate the press. It isn’t working — yet. If you blinked, you might have missed the turn in the national spotlight of Tony Bobulinski, a disgruntled former business partner of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. Bobulinski’s claims of corruption by Joe Biden were promoted by President Donald Trump and his campaign, then debunked within hours. But the affair shows why journalists should be wary of the information control strategy that Trump’s allies are using to smear the former vice president through his son’s business interests. https://www.mediamatters.org/rudy-giuliani/rudy-giuliani-trying-manipulate-press-it-isnt-working-yet

Conspiracy theories emerged just over a week prior to the 2020 presidential election appear to be part of a larger disinformation campaign centered around the “pizzagate” conspiracy theory as well as an attempt to implicate Joe Biden as a pedophile. While the baseless far-right conspiracy theories are constantly evolving, the bad-faith framing of the Bidens as child abusers has stayed consistent. Media Matters has identified six hashtags on TikTok promoting this disinformation campaign targeting Hunter and sometimes Joe Biden with over 1.76 million views. https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/ignoring-its-own-policies-tiktok-enables-last-ditch-smears-against-hunter-biden-spread