1. The Borowitz Report: New Poll Shows Trump Losing to Hunter Biden

With less than two weeks until the election, a new poll of likely voters shows Donald J. Trump losing badly to Hunter Biden.

Though Hunter Biden holds a commanding lead over Trump nationally, the poll reveals that he also trounces the President in such key swing states as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Voters preferred Hunter Biden over Trump when asked who would do a better job of “handling the pandemic,” “creating jobs,” and “caring about people like me.”

In the most ominous news for the President, if Hunter Biden were somehow prosecuted, convicted, and locked up, voters would still choose him over Trump by a double-digit margin. https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/

2. Trump ups pressure on Barr to probe Bidens as election nears

Donald Trump on Tuesday called on Attorney General William Barr to immediately launch an investigation into unverified claims about Democrat Joe Biden and his son Hunter, effectively demanding that the Justice Department muddy his political opponent and abandon its historic resistance to getting involved in elections.

With just two weeks to go before Election Day, Trump for the first time explicitly called on Barr to investigate the Bidens and even pointed to the nearing Nov. 3 election as reason that Barr should not delay taking action. Trump has been leveling accusations of corruption against Biden without verified evidence for months, but is stepping up the pressure in the final days of the campaign.

“We’ve got to get the attorney general to act,” Trump said in an interview on “Fox & Friends.” “He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast. He’s got to appoint somebody. This is major corruption, and this has to be known about before the election.” https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-william-barr-elections-20fd56b64801dd83b1657c630a1ebdfa

3. Lawyers say they can't find the parents of 545 migrant children separated by Trump administration

Lawyers appointed by a federal judge to identify migrant families who were separated by the Trump administration say that they have yet to track down the parents of 545 children and that about two-thirds of those parents were deported to Central America without their children, according to a filing Tuesday from the American Civil Liberties Union. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/lawyers-say-they-can-t-find-parents-545-migrant-children-n1244066

4. NBC Town Hall: Savannah Guthrie gets answers from Trump by setting a fast pace and following up.

Savannah Guthrie spent most of the NBC News town asking Trump a series of quick-paced, conversational questions that put him on the spot and successfully revealed his evasions in a way that few of his interlocutors have managed. VIDEOS:

The President provides a strange defense of his retweeting of a Seal Team Six conspiracy theory: https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1316898954194239488

Trump refusing to denounce QAnon: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1316898607157706752

Trump defending retweeting insane conspiracy theories: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1316899310236217345

Trump trying to make it seem like owing more than $400 million is a totally normal thing: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1316906070892314627

"That's a statutory number" -- Trump's weird explanation for only paying $750 in federal taxes in 2016: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1316902598423810050

Guthrie: You retweeted it. (An article alleging "Biden and Obama may have had Seal Team 6 killed," posted by a QAnon account and written by "an ex-Community Organizer and Homeschool Mom.")
Trump: That was an opinion of somebody and that was a retweet. I'll put it out there.
Guthrie: I don't get that. You're the president. You're not like someone's crazy uncle who can retweet whatever: https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1316896674992836614

5. Republican Voters Take a Radical Conspiracy Theory Mainstream

Though there has been little public polling, there is growing anecdotal evidence that QAnon followers now make up a small but significant minority of Republicans. Adherents are running for Congress and flexing their political muscles at the state and local levels. The movement’s growth has picked up pace since the onset of the pandemic in March, and its potency is clear on social media — before Facebook banned QAnon content earlier this month, there were thousands of dedicated Facebook groups with millions of members The phenomenon can be seen at Trump rallies, where people wearing QAnon shirts and hats are commonplace.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/politics/qanon-trump-republicans.html

NOTE: A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll finds that 50% of President Trump’s supporters think that Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings, while 33% aren’t sure.

6. White House was warned Giuliani was target of Russian intelligence operation to feed misinformation to Trump

U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence, according to four former officials familiar with the matter.

The warnings were based on multiple sources, including intercepted communications, that showed Giuliani was interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence during a December 2019 trip to Ukraine, where he was gathering information that he thought would expose corrupt acts by former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

The intelligence raised concerns that Giuliani was being used to feed Russian misinformation to the president, the former officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and conversations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-biden-ukraine-russian-disinformation/2020/10/15/43158900-0ef5-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html

7. State Department signals it will keep most details of its spending at Trump’s properties hidden until after election

The State Department says it has about 450 pages of records showing government spending at President Trump’s properties. But this week, it signaled that it plans to release only two of those pages before the November election — leaving voters in the dark about the full scope of taxpayer payments to the president’s company.

The State Department announced the decision to release just the two pages late Thursday in an email to The Post, which had filed a public-records lawsuit earlier this year, seeking any records showing State Department payments to Trump properties.

The State Department pays for hotel rooms and other expenses when foreign leaders visit Trump properties, and when federal employees, such as Secret Service agents, follow Trump and his family to the president’s overseas clubs. But it’s impossible to tell how much the department has spent in total, because it has released detailed records for only the first few months of Trump’s presidency.

The Post’s lawsuit asked for a fuller accounting, requesting records of those payments over several years of Trump’s term.

In response, the State Department had said in a legal filing it would try to release up to 300 pages of the remaining records on Thursday. Instead, it sent the two pages — the receipts of a single hotel bill from Trump’s Irish golf course, involving security for Trump’s daughter-in-law and campaign adviser Lara Trump. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/state-department-signals-it-will-keep-most-details-of-its-spending-at-trumps-properties-hidden-until-after-election/2020/10/16/83372f30-0f21-11eb-8074-0e943a91bf08_story.html

8. Administration officials alarmed by White House push to fast track lucrative 5G spectrum contract, sources say

Senior officials throughout various departments and agencies of the Trump administration tell CNN they are alarmed at White House pressure to grant what would essentially be a no-bid contract to lease the Department of Defense's mid-band spectrum -- premium real estate for the booming and lucrative 5G market -- to Rivada Networks, a company in which prominent Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump have investments.

The pressure campaign to fast track Rivada's "Request for Proposal" (RFP) by using authorities that would preclude a competitive bidding process intensified in September, and has been led by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was acting at Trump's behest, sources with knowledge tell CNN. To push his case, Meadows has sometimes used as his proxy an individual identified by sources in the telecommunications industry as a top financial management official in the US Army.

Sources tell CNN that Trump was encouraged to help Rivada by Fox News commentator and veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove, a lobbyist for, and investor in, Rivada.

Untold billions are at stake. A government auction of 70 megahertz of spectrum in August went for more than $4.5 billion. The Rivada bid would be for 350 megahertz of spectrum -- five times that amount. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/politics/white-house-5g-spectrum-no-bid-contract-rivada/index.html

9. Trump leans into fear tactics in bid to win Midwest states

Donald Trump leaned into fear tactics Saturday as he accused the left of trying to “destroy the American way of life” in a late reelection pitch to voters in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Trump accused the left of wanting to “erase American history” and “purge American values.” He claimed, with no basis, that Democratic rival Joe Biden would put communities at risk.

As he tries to energize his base and keep on-the-fence voters from turning against him, Trump sought to paint Democrats as “anti-American radicals” and said moderates had “a moral duty” to join the Republican Party.

“The Democrat (sic) Party you once knew doesn’t exist,” he said. It was the same on issue after issue, as he claimed in hyperbolic terms that Biden’s election would spur “the single biggest depression in the history of our country” and “turn Michigan into a refugee camp.”

Addressing the coronavirus crisis, Trump warned that Biden would “shut down the country, delay the vaccine and prolong the pandemic.” Public health experts say the nation would be in far better shape had Trump’s administration taken more aggressive action early on. https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-joe-biden-donald-trump-wisconsin-a2105a35e4dc66508e68ecbfd6f24b8b

10. Twitter removes tweet from Trump's COVID adviser claiming masks do not work

Twitter took down a tweet from one of President Trump’s most visible coronavirus task force members, Scott Atlas, that claimed widespread use of face masks does not help slow the spread of COVID-19. https://www.axios.com/scott-atlas-tweet-coronavirus-3c08c26a-da07-4e2b-9a28-0cac122f359b.html

11. Fearing a ‘Blood Bath,’ Republican Senators Begin to Edge Away From Trump

For nearly four years, congressional Republicans have ducked and dodged an unending cascade of offensive statements and norm-shattering behavior from President Trump, ignoring his caustic and scattershot Twitter feed and penchant for flouting party orthodoxy, and standing quietly by as he abandoned military allies, attacked American institutions and stirred up racist and nativist fears.

But now, facing grim polling numbers and a flood of Democratic money and enthusiasm that has imperiled their majority in the Senate, Republicans on Capitol Hill are beginning to publicly distance themselves from the president. The shift, less than three weeks before the election, indicates that many Republicans have concluded that Mr. Trump is heading for a loss in November. And they are grasping to save themselves and rushing to re-establish their reputations for a coming struggle for their party’s identity. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/us/politics/republican-senators-trump.html

12. HHS lawyer: Trump’s drug cards could violate election law

The health department’s top lawyer is warning in an internal memo that President Donald Trump's plan to give seniors $200 discount cards to buy prescription drugs could violate election law, according to three officials with knowledge of those legal concerns.

The lawyer’s objection, coupled with his advice to seek approval from the Department of Justice, is a significant blow to Trump’s hope to promote the hastily devised plan before Election Day. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/16/hhs-lawyer-trump-drug-cards-election-law-429989

13. If Past Is a Guide, Arctic Could Be Verging on Permafrost Collapse

Buried in frozen soil across the Arctic, billions of tons of carbon lies trapped in the ground. Just a few degrees of warming could unleash it into the atmosphere.

A new study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, looks back 27,000 years into Arctic history. On at least three occasions, the study finds, periods of rapid climate change caused huge swaths of permafrost—a layer of carbon-rich frozen soil widespread in the Arctic—to quickly thaw or collapse.

As a result, huge volumes of carbon dioxide poured into the air.

Today, the planet is once again enduring a period of rapid climate change—this time caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases. In fact, research suggests, the Earth is warming at one of its fastest rates in millions of years.

If the past is any lesson for the future, that could mean a little more warming may trigger yet another massive destabilization of Arctic permafrost.

It’s a red flag scientists have been waving for years. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/if-past-is-a-guide-arctic-could-be-verging-on-permafrost-collapse/

14. Tapes Show Neo-Nazis Trying to Recruit Soldiers

Secret recordings of a militant neo-Nazi organization called The Base reveal that the group is recruiting people with military expertise in the U.S. and Canada to train in military operations and prepare to take advantage of what they believe is impending societal collapse.

The audio recordings are from calls between the leader of The Base and more than 100 prospective recruits using the encrypted app Wire. The Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, which monitors hate groups, says that it obtained more than 80 hours of audio recorded starting in November 2018 and that the recordings are featured in a new three-part podcast titled "Baseless" that is being released as part of the SPLC's "Sounds Like Hate" podcast series. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/secret-tapes-show-neo-nazi-group-base-recruiting-former-members-n1243395

15. Vote Like the Planet Depends on It—Because It Does

To understand the planetary importance of this autumn’s presidential election, check the calendar. Voting ends on Nov. 3—and by a fluke of timing, on the morning of Nov. 4, the United States is scheduled to pull out of the Paris Agreement.

Trump announced during a Rose Garden speech in 2017 that we would abrogate our Paris commitments. But under the terms of the accords, it takes three years to formalize the withdrawal. So on Election Day it won’t be just Americans watching: The people of the world will see whether the country that has poured more carbon into the atmosphere than any other over the course of history will become the only country that refuses to cooperate in the one international effort to do something about the climate crisis. https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/09/22/vote-presidential-election-climate-change/

16. Trump's advisers brace for loss, point fingers

The Trump campaign is filled with internal blaming and pre-spinning of a potential loss, accelerating a dire mood that's driven by a daily barrage of bleak headlines, campaign and White House officials tell me.

"A lot of this is the president himself," one adviser said. "You can't heal a patient who doesn't want to take the diagnosis.” https://www.axios.com/trump-advisers-brace-for-loss-02d6b688-4d15-46f8-a28c-efdf2a5640c3.html

17. A Regulatory Rush by Federal Agencies to Secure Trump’s Legacy

Facing the prospect that President Trump could lose his re-election bid, his cabinet is scrambling to enact regulatory changes affecting millions of Americans in a blitz so rushed it may leave some changes vulnerable to court challenges.

The effort is evident in a broad range of federal agencies and encompasses proposals like easing limits on how many hours some truckers can spend behind the wheel, giving the government more freedom to collect biometric data and setting federal standards for when workers can be classified as independent contractors rather than employees.

In the bid to lock in new rules before Jan. 20, Mr. Trump’s team is limiting or sidestepping requirements for public comment on some of the changes and swatting aside critics who say the administration has failed to carry out sufficiently rigorous analysis. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/us/politics/regulatory-rush-federal-agencies-trump.html

18. Trump, Citing Pandemic, Moves to Weaken Environmental Protections

The Trump administration, in twin actions to curb environmental regulations, moved on Thursday to temporarily speed the construction of energy projects and to permanently weaken federal authority to issue stringent clean air and climate change rules.

Trump signed an executive order that calls on agencies to waive required environmental reviews of infrastructure projects to be built during the pandemic-driven economic crisis. At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a new rule that changes the way the agency uses cost-benefit analyses to enact Clean Air Act regulations, effectively limiting the strength of future air pollution controls.

Together, the actions signal that Mr. Trump intends to speed up his efforts to dismantle environmental regulations as the nation battles the coronavirus and a wave of unrest protesting the deaths of black Americans in Georgia, Minnesota and Kentucky. They will also help define the stakes in the 2020 presidential election, since neither effort would likely survive a Democratic victory.

By changing the way the government weighs the value of the public health benefits, Andrew Wheeler, the E.P.A. administrator, would allow the agency to justify weakening clean air and climate change regulations with economic arguments. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/climate/trump-environment-coronavirus.html

19. Donald Trump Has At Least $1 Billion In Debt, More Than Twice The Amount He Suggested

No aspect of Donald Trump’s business has been the subject of more speculation than his debt load. Lots of people believe the president owes $400 million, especially after Trump seemed to agree with that figure on national television Thursday night. In reality, however, he owes more than $1 billion. 

The loans are spread out over more than a dozen different assets—hotels, buildings, mansions and golf courses. Most are listed on the financial disclosure report Trump files annually with the federal government. Two, which add up to an estimated $447 million, are not.

The president’s liabilities are spelled out in dozens of documents, published at https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/10/16/donald-trump-has-at-least-1-billion-in-debt-more-than-twice-the-amount-he-suggested/#46b5b9a14330

20. Trump Will Have $900 Million Of Loans Coming Due In His Second Term If He’s Reelected

Whether or not Donald Trump wins the election, lenders will expect his businesses to pay back an estimated $900 million in the next four years, an alarmingly accelerated timetable that involves more than twice as much debt as the president previously indicated. In order to emerge unscathed, Trump will likely have to engage in a series of high-stakes, big-money transactions—deals that could produce arguably the biggest conflicts of interest that an American president has ever had to face.

About half of the debt coming due from the start of 2021 to the end of 2024 is secured against assets that the president and his children own outright. He will have to pay back loans against his hotel in Washington, D.C., his golf resort in Miami and his tower in Chicago. He’ll also have to sort out the debt against Trump Tower and Trump Plaza in New York City. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/10/19/trump-will-have-900-million-of-loans-coming-due-in-his-second-term-if-hes-reelected/#645332945f37

21. Facebook suspends account of Ukrainian politician working with Giuliani

Facebook has suspended the account of the Ukrainian politician Andrii Derkach, who has been accused by the U.S. government of being a Russian agent and trying to meddle in the presidential election.

“We removed this account and this Page for violating our policy against the use of our platform by people engaged in election-focused influence operations,” Facebook said in a statement Monday.

Derkach, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, has been working with President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to try to gather derogatory information about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-suspends-account-ukrainian-politician-working-giuliani-n1243899

22. Barrett Was Trustee at School with Anti-Gay Policies

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett served for nearly three years on the board of private Christian schools that effectively barred admission to children of same-sex parents and made it plain that openly gay and lesbian teachers weren’t welcome in the classroom.

The policies that discriminated against LGBTQ people and their children were in place for years at Trinity Schools Inc., both before Barrett joined the board in 2015 and during the time she served. https://apnews.com/article/south-bend-only-on-ap-amy-coney-barrett-minnesota-virginia-a8bbabea9ee4d2fb13c6079c09f2f075

23. Trump is ending the census count early. It's a feat of profound political cynicism

A Supreme Court ruling this week allowed the Trump administration to end the 2020 census two weeks early, risking an undercount of members of the population who are difficult to reach – particularly immigrants, transients, and the poor. From the beginning, the administration has attempted to meddle with what is usually a scrupulously non-partisan process in order to advance its goal of disenfranchising and immiserating parts of the country which do not vote Republican. And following this court ruling, it is on track to get away with it.

Even by Trump’s own standards of naked partisanship and self-dealing, the weaponization of the census has been cynical and alarming. By deliberately attempting to produce an undercount in certain parts of the country, and by trying to seize control of the process whereby the census is used to allocate seats in the House of Representatives and Electoral College, the administration is leaving behind a tainted legacy. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/15/trump-is-ending-the-census-count-early-its-a-feat-of-profound-political-cynicism

24. Ohio’s quarter-mile early-voting lines? That's what voter suppression looks like

In-person early voting started in Ohio this week, and in the state’s largest cities, it was a total mess. In Columbus, the line stretched for a quarter of a mile. In Cuyahoga county, the hours-long wait began before polls even opened.

All of this was entirely predictable. Thanks to an Ohio state law passed in 2006 by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed by a Republican governor, the number of in-person early voting sites is limited to just one per county. That means Vinton County, a Republican stronghold in the state’s southeast that’s home to just 13,500 Ohioans, has approximately 97 times more polling-places-per-voter than Franklin County, the deep-blue bastion with a population of more than 1.3 million. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/15/ohio-us-election-voter-suppression

25. 8 Million Have Slipped Into Poverty Since May as Federal Aid Has Dried Up

After an ambitious expansion of the safety net in the spring saved millions of people from poverty, the aid is now largely exhausted and poverty has returned to levels higher than before the coronavirus crisis, two new studies have found.

The number of poor people has grown by eight million since May, according to researchers at Columbia University, after falling by four million at the pandemic’s start as a result of a $2 trillion emergency package known as the Cares Act.

Using a different definition of poverty, researchers from the University of Chicago and Notre Dame found that poverty has grown by six million people in the past three months, with circumstances worsening most for Black people and children.

Significantly, the studies differ on the most recent month: While the Columbia model shows an improvement in September, the Chicago and Notre Dame analysts found poverty continued to grow.

“These numbers are very concerning,” said Bruce D. Meyer, an economist at the University of Chicago and an author of the study. “They tell us people are having a lot more trouble paying their bills, paying their rent, putting food on the table.”

The recent rise in poverty has occurred despite an improving job market, an indiction that the economy has been rebounding too slowly to offset the lost benefits. The Democratic House has twice passed multitrillion-dollar packages to provide more help and to stimulate the economy, but members of a divided Republican Senate, questioning the cost and necessity, have proposed smaller plans. President Trump has alternately demanded that Congress “go big” before the elections and canceled negotiations. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/us/politics/federal-aid-poverty-levels.html

26. Trump’s Tweets on Troop Withdrawals Unnerve Pentagon

Trump’s surprise tweet last week that he would pull all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Christmas is not the only important military mission he may abruptly shrink or end as Election Day nears.

Even senior military commanders have sought to distance themselves from their commander in chief’s troop withdrawal forecasts, which have caught them off guard. And critics say that in seeking to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring American troops home from “endless wars,” the president is exposing the country to even greater national security risks.

“There’s no strategy; there’s just electioneering,” said Kori Schake, who directs foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/us/politics/trump-troop-withdrawals.html

27. Trump appears to earnestly share satirical website’s take on Twitter

Donald Trump on Friday shared a story from a known news satire website seemingly in earnest, using the fake report to blast Twitter’s handling of dubious allegations against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The story tweeted by the president early Friday morning was published by The Babylon Bee — which bills itself online as “the world’s best satire site” — and stated that Twitter had “shut down its entire social network” Thursday to stop the spread of negative news about Biden.

Trump appeared to take the report seriously when he tweeted it from his account, writing: “Wow, this has never been done in history. This includes his really bad interview last night. Why is Twitter doing this. Bringing more attention to Sleepy Joe & Big T.” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/16/trump-apparently-fooled-by-satirical-websites-twitter-story-429776

28. Meadows Says Trump Didn’t Intend to Declassify Probe

Chief of staff MEADOWS tells a court that Trump didn't mean it when he said he was ordering the declassification of all Russia-probe documents.

Trump was just referring to his delegation of declassification authority to AG Barr, Meadows says. https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1318581098859892736

29. Joe Biden Goes After President Donald Trump's Edge on the Economy—And It's Working

In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Joe Biden has taken aim at one of President Donald Trump’s longstanding strengths with a closing message that he would be a better steward of a shaky American economy.

In a series of speeches in battleground states, Biden has consistently touted his “Build Back Better” platform to create millions of jobs through government spending, his plans to repeal Trump’s tax cuts on the wealthy and big corporations, and his ideas for creating a 21st century workforce by investing in green jobs and a caregiving workforce. It’s a message designed to cut into Trump’s longstanding edge with voters on the question of who they trust to manage the economy—a core issue in every election, but especially in the midst of a pandemic-driven recession.

It appears to be working. In a CNN poll released Oct. 6, Biden and Trump were in a statistical dead heat on the question of who would better handle the economy: 50% of likely voters said Biden, while 48% said Trump. When CNN asked the same question to registered voters in May, Trump led by 12 points. https://time.com/5900603/joe-biden-economy/

30. Justice Dept. Says Trump’s Denial of Rape Accusation Was an Official Act

The Justice Department said on Monday that President Trump should not be sued personally for having denied a rape allegation because he made the statement while acting in his official capacity as president. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/nyregion/jean-carroll-trump-rape-lawsuit.html

31. Time’s up: After a reprieve, a wave of evictions expected across U.S.

Unless Congress and the Trump administration move past their deadlock over the contours of a new COVID-19 relief package and include financial relief for tenants and landlords, January will bring a surge in displacement and homelessness “unlike anything we have ever seen,” said John Pollock, a Public Justice Center attorney and coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel.

The Democrat-controlled House passed a relief package that included $50 billion in emergency renter and homeowner assistance funds and a new ban on evictions and foreclosures for 12 months; the Republican-controlled Senate’s proposal contains no similar provisions. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-housing-eviction-insight/times-up-after-a-reprieve-a-wave-of-evictions-expected-across-u-s-idUSKBN27415U

32.  The Foxconn project has succeeded in manufacturing an endless supply of wonderful things for the President to promise his supporters

In 2017, President Donald Trump and the Wisconsin GOP struck a deal with Foxconn that promised to turn Southeastern Wisconsin into a tech manufacturing powerhouse.

“In exchange for billions in tax subsidies, Foxconn was supposed to build an enormous LCD factory in the tiny village of Mount Pleasant, creating 13,000 jobs.”

Three years later, the factory — and the jobs — don’t exist, and they probably never will. https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wisconsin-jobs-loophole-trump

33. Trump Is Taking Down Names as Republicans Begin Jumping Ship on His ‘Totally Off the Rails’ Campaign

Over the past few weeks, Donald Trump and his allies have kept close tabs on prominent conservatives the president believes are gearing up to throw him under the bus in the event he loses his bid for re-election.

Two individuals who have spoken to Trump say the president has expressed suspicion that members of his own party believe he will be defeated by Joe Biden. That sense of paranoia has been fed by the president’s aides and confidants, who have flagged news coverage for him of Republican politicians either openly criticizing his conduct or else trying to distance themselves from a looming possible electoral bloodbath.

According to one of the sources with direct knowledge, the president is already contemplating retribution.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-taking-down-names-as-republicans-like-mitch-mcconnell-susan-collins-start-jumping-ship

34. 'Our house is on fire': Suburban women lead charge vs. Trump

Trump has tried to appeal to “the suburban housewives of America,” as he called them. Embracing fear and deploying dog whistles, he has argued that Black Lives Matter protesters will bring crime, low-income housing will ruin property values, suburbs will be abolished. Campaigning in Pennsylvania last week, he begged: “Suburban women, will you please like me?”

There’s no sign all this is working. Some recent polls show Biden winning support from about 60% of suburban women. In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton won 52%, according to an estimate by the Pew Research Center. https://apnews.com/article/suburban-women-trump-biden-michigan-6e0e7217e86929c46f729c4127341340

35. Why do conspiracy theories about pedophilia hold such sway with some conservatives?

In 2016, Democrats’ imagined penchant for child predation was manifested in the made-up charge that Hillary Clinton presided over a child sex-trafficking ring. Adherents of this fiction spun an elaborate online fantasy that the presidential candidate — along with her husband, former President Clinton, and other prominent Democrats — was running such an enterprise from a nonexistent network of tunnels beneath a real-life pizza joint in Washington.

Clinton lost the election, but the fabricated charge that a secret cabal of pedophiles rules the Democratic Party remained a central feature of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Its adherents are allied with President Trump, the man they see as leading the charge against these “deep state” elites.

Now similar fictions are being aimed at Joe Biden, the current Democratic presidential nominee.

The hashtag #PedoBiden has been on the rise in recent months, and Trump gave it a boost by retweeting a video from an anonymous Twitter account that purported to show Biden in the act. The issue came up in Trump’s Thursday night town hall, when the president refused to repudiate QAnon and commended its adherents for being “strongly against pedophilia.”

Some researchers have gathered evidence that conspiracy theories involving pedophilia tend to exert a stronger and more enduring hold on people who identify as conservative or embrace policy positions strongly identified with American conservatism.

In an influential 1964 article, Columbia University political scientist Richard Hofstadter described a particular strain of American partisans who employed “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness and conspiratorial fantasy” in their discourse. These people — a group typified by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who initiated a range of investigations to root out suspected communists in the federal government — “believe themselves to be conservatives and usually employ the rhetoric of conservatism,” he wrote. https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-10-16/why-do-conspiracy-theories-about-pedophilia-hold-such-sway-with-some-conservatives

36. The DAILY GRILL

“The United States now regularly sells out our allies under his leadership, the way he treats women, spends like a drunken sailor. The ways I criticize President Obama for that kind of spending; I’ve criticized President Trump for as well. He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors. His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He’s flirted with white supremacists.” — Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) eviscerating President Trump during a phone call with constituents in which he accused the president of cozying up to dictators, mistreating women, flirting with white supremacists and irresponsibly handling the coronavirus pandemic.

VERSUS

The least effective of our 53 Republican Senators, and a person who truly doesn’t have what it takes to be great, is Little Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a State which I have gladly done so much to help.
@SenSasse was as nice as a RINO can be until he recently won the Republican Nomination to run for a second term. Then he went back to his rather stupid and obnoxious ways. Must feel he can’t lose to a Dem. Little Ben is a liability to the Republican Party, and an embarrassment to the Great State of Nebraska. Other than that, he’s just a wonderful guy! — Donald Trump

 

“I made it very clear, yes, that I did not think there should be a vote prior to the election. And if there is one, I would oppose the nominee not because I might not support that nominee under normal circumstances, but we're simply too close to the election." -- Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)

VERSUS

There is a nasty rumor out there that @SenatorCollins of Maine will not be supporting our great United States Supreme Court Nominee. Well, she didn’t support Healthcare or my opening up 5000 square miles of Ocean to Maine, so why should this be any different. Not worth the work! -- Trump tweet

 

When Biden was spearheading the 1994 crime bill, he called African Americans “super-predators, and they’ve never forgotten it.” — A claim Trump made repeatedly.

VERSUS

Actually, that was a phrase famously uttered by Hillary Clinton, not Biden. -- Factcheck.org

 

In the tweet, Trump, who is currently campaigning for his father's reelection, shared the image of the home in Wilmington, Delaware, with the message "the salary of a U.S. Senator is $174,000 per year. This is Joe Biden's house.... seems legit.” -- Eric Trump tweeted a picture of a sprawling property he claimed is owned by Joe Biden, evidence of corruption by the Democratic presidential nominee. 

VERSUS

"Biden hasn’t owned the property for 24 years, and had bought it for a bargain price of $185,000 in 1974 when it was derelict.” -- Fact-checking site Snopes 

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

Trump propagandists are spreading a debunked conspiracy theory about the source of Joe Biden's income. A Lou Dobbs segment sparked speculation that a quick rise in Biden’s income was due to his son’s alleged illicit activities, even though the Bidens have publicly released tax returns showing that their income is from book deals and speaking engagements. https://www.mediamatters.org/lou-dobbs/trump-propagandists-are-spreading-debunked-conspiracy-theory-about-source-joe-bidens

Right-wing media question integrity of Pennsylvania’s election by conflating mail-in ballot applications with mail-in ballots. 372,000 applications for mail-in ballots were reportedly rejected in Pennsylvania. Most of those requests were from people who already signed up to receive mail-in ballots. ProPublica reported that one voter submitted 11 requests to vote by mail -- not that anyone received 11 ballots. https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/right-wing-media-question-integrity-pennsylvanias-election-conflating