The Commentariat -- October 25, 2020

Some of this is too true:

Presidential Race, Etc.

Jill Colvin, et al., of the AP: "With coronavirus infections reaching their highest peak of the pandemic just as the election headed into the home stretch, Trump and Biden took starkly different approaches to the public health crisis in appealing for votes in battleground states. 'We don't want to become superspreaders,' Biden told supporters at a 'drive-in' rally Saturday in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.... The former vice president pressed his case that Trump was showing dangerous indifference to the surging virus on a day he looked to boost his candidacy with the star power of rock legend Jon Bon Jovi, who performed before Biden took the stage at a second drive-in rally in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.... Biden hosted another rally later Saturday in Luzerne County, a blue-collar area that twice voted for Barack Obama but went overwhelmingly for Trump four years ago." Meanwhile, Trump held three superspreader rallies where he mocked Biden & measures to control coronavirus & claimed that testing was "in many ways foolish."

[When Joe Biden becomes president,] we won't have a president who threatens people with jail for just criticizing him.... That's not normal behavior, Florida.... You wouldn't tolerate it from a coworker, you wouldn't tolerate it from a high school principal, you wouldn't tolerate it from a coach, you wouldn't tolerate it from a family member. Why are we accepting it from the president of the United States?... Florida Man wouldn't even do this stuff. -- President Barack Obama, at a drive-in rally in North Miami, Saturday ~~~

~~~ Alex Daugherty & David Smiley of the Tampa Bay Times: "Former President Barack Obama criticized nearly every facet of ... Donald Trump's record while campaigning for Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Saturday, making specific appeals to Florida's diverse electorate by mentioning issues like socialism, the Affordable Care Act and the federal government's Hurricane Maria response during his first Miami speech in two years. But the biggest chunk of his 45-minute speech was devoted to an issue that affects every voter: ... Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.... 'We literally left this White House a pandemic playbook to show them how to respond before a virus reached our shores,' Obama said at Florida International University's Biscayne Bay Campus in North Miami. 'It must be lost along with the Republican healthcare plan.'" Mrs. McC: Former Republican President George W. Bush did not campaign for Donald Trump.

A Woman Finds a Way to Get MAGA Men to Vote for Biden. Michael Ellsberg in the Daily Beast: "... up until recently, there's one group of potential Biden voters who have not been the subject of voter outreach: kinky, submissive male Trump supporters with humiliation fetishes. Now, thanks to a Las Vegas-based professional dominatrix named Empress Delfina, this once-overlooked voting bloc is covered -- and may be voting Biden. By force. She calls it 'Trump Conversion Therapy.' At $1.99 a minute, business is booming.” Ellsberg interviews Delfina. The interview is interesting, & in places creepy & funny. (I'm not sure if Ellsberg paid her $1.99/minute for the interview.)

Sarah Elbeshbishi of USA Today: "Most registered voters said that ... Joe Biden performed better than ... Donald Trump during the second presidential debate, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll released Friday. Fifty-four percent of voters who watched the Thursday debate said Biden performed the best, while 39% said that Trump did. Eight percent of voters who watched weren't sure or had no opinion on who did best. Both& candidates' performances improved with voters since the first presidential debate."

Lev Casts More Doubt on Rudy's Purloined Laptop Fable. Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "... Rudy Giuliani was offered salacious photos and other documents belonging to Joe Biden's son Hunter in the spring of 2019, earlier than previously known, according to one of Giuliani's closest former associates [Lev Parnas]. And the alleged offer came from ... a Ukrainian oligarch looking for help with a potential legal jam [with the U.S. Justice Department]. The claim ... raises new questions about the provenance of the materials Giuliani has said he obtained recently from a computer repair shop in Delaware -- and that he is now touting to accuse the Democratic nominee of corruption. Parnas, who collaborated with Giuliani on the former New York mayor's quest to find damaging information on the Bidens beginning in late 2018, now says that similar materials were being offered to Giuliani just weeks after Joe Biden launched his presidential run.... Time Magazine reported earlier this week that at least two people were approached with offers to buy salacious Biden material in the spring and fall of 2019, raising similar questions about the original source of the photos and emails Giuliani gave to the New York Post."

They Learned from the Master to Whine & Deflect Responsibility. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... Donald Trump's top advisers have plunged into a bitter round of finger-pointing and blame-shifting ahead of an increasingly likely defeat. Accusations are flying in all directions and about all manner of topics -- from allegedly questionable spending decisions by former campaign manager Brad Parscale, to how White House chief of staff Mark Meadows handled Trump's hospitalization for Covid-19, to skepticism that TV ads have broken through. Interviews with nearly a dozen Trump aides, campaign advisers and Republican officials also surfaced accusations that the president didn't take fundraising seriously enough and that the campaign undermined its effort to win over seniors by casting Democrat Joe Biden as senile. Finger-pointing is a common feature of campaigns that think they're losing, but it's happening at an uncommon level in this campaign. Shifting responsibility has been a staple of the Trump presidency -- and his lieutenants are now following suit." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Congressional Races. Josh Dawsey & Rachel Bade of the Washington Post: "President Trump privately told donors this past week that it will be 'very tough' for Republicans to keep control of the Senate in the upcoming election because some of the party's senators are candidates he cannot support. 'I think the Senate is tough actually. The Senate is very tough,' Trump said at a fundraiser Thursday at the Nashville Marriott, according to an attendee. 'There are a couple senators I can't really get involved in. I just can't do it. You lose your soul if you do. I can't help some of them. I don't want to help some of them.'... The president -- in a sentiment not shared by many of his party's top officials and strategists -- said he instead thinks the Republicans 'are going to take back the House.' And many strategists involved in Senate races say the party's chances at keeping the chamber are undermined by the president's unscripted, divisive rhetoric and his low poll numbers in key states.: ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Nobody thinks you have a soul to lose, President* Lucifer. Let's hope Trump is right on the former, because it's unlikely he's right on the latter. Most pollsters think House Democrats, if anything, will gain seats.

And You Thought Bush II Was Bad. Andrew Solender of Forbes: "President Trump's two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, both of whom have been deeply involved in their father's reelection campaign, broke with the 'Keep America Great' message on Saturday to hint at their own runs in 2024, as polls show their father heavily disfavored to win reelection. Donald Trump Jr. ... posted a photo of a 'Don Jr. 2024' flag to instagram.... Eric Trump ... liked a tweet on Saturday reading 'Eric Trump 2024,' a move some commentators recognized as roughly equivalent to his brother's instagram post."

Isaac Stanley-Becker & Tony Romm of the Washington Post: Especially in Republicans strongholds, voters are flooding county offices with fears their mail-in ballots will be ditched. Their "worries can be traced to baseless or alarmist statements by President Trump and posts on his Twitter feed. Others have been fed by headlines stripped of context and misleading reporting in the mainstream media according to election administrators, voting rights advocates and experts in online communication. The confusion and chaos follow a months-long campaign by Trump and his allies to sow doubt about voting by mail.... Many Democrats appear to have dealt with their fears by opting for early voting, powering overwhelming turnout, while Republicans insist they will make up ground on Election Day." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The story includes some ridiculous rumors like, "They're sending ballots to dogs." But the most ridiculous assertion, the biggest lie is this: "In a statement, Trump campaign spokeswoman Thea McDonald said the president 'has been fighting for months' to stop what she described as 'last-minute election rule changes.'" The Trump campaign, the RNC & state GOP organizations have filed hundreds of lawsuits to effect "last-minute election rule changes." Ten days before the election, while Americans have been voting for weeks, some of those cases are still in court.

New York. Edgar Sandoval & Troy Closson of the New York Times: "New Yorkers flooded polling places on Saturday, the first day of early voting in the state.... Saturday was the first time New Yorkers were allowed to vote early in a presidential election, which is expected to produce record voter turnout.... Recent mishaps involving absentee ballots drove many voters to the polls on Saturday.... Late last month, the city's Board of Elections came under fire after as many as 100,000 voters in Brooklyn received absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses.... Unlike in many other states and the rest of New York, where people can cast ballots at any early voting center in their county, voters in New York City are allowed to vote early only at assigned locations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Texas. Julia Harte of Reuters: "The Texas Supreme Court on Saturday temporarily reinstated the governor's ban on multiple drop-off sites for mail ballots, in a short-term victory for ... Donald Trump. The ban will remain in effect while the state supreme court fully reviews a Friday appeals court ruling that overturned the order by Governor Greg Abbott...."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here: "The latest coronavirus surge is raging across the American heartland, most acutely in the Midwest and Mountain West. This harrowing third surge, which led to a U.S. single-day record of more than 85,000 new cases Friday, is happening less than two weeks from Election Day, which will mark the end of a campaign dominated by the pandemic and President Trump's much-criticized response to it.... The virus will be front of mind for voters in several key states: in Ohio, where more people are hospitalized than at any other time during the pandemic, and especially Wisconsin, home to seven of the country's 10 metro areas with the highest numbers of recent cases. On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked Gov. Tony Evers' emergency order restricting the size of indoor gatherings to 25 percent capacity on Friday.... President Trump and many supporters blame restrictions on business activity, often imposed by Democratic governors and mayors, for prolonging the economic crisis initially caused by the virus. But the experience of states like Iowa, which recently set a record for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, shows the economy is far from back to normal even in Republican-led states that have imposed few business restrictions." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Several members of Vice President Mike Pence's inner circle, including at least four members of his staff, have tested positive for the coronavirus in the past few days, people briefed on the matter said, raising new questions about the safety protocols at the White House, where masks are not routinely worn. Devin O'Malley, a spokesman for Mr. Pence, said that the vice president's chief of staff, Marc Short, had tested positive.... 'While Vice President Pence is considered a close contact with Mr. Short, in consultation with the White House Medical Unit, the vice president will maintain his schedule in accordance with the C.D.C. guidelines for essential personnel.' The statement did not come from the White House medical unit, but instead from a press aide. Two people briefed on the matter said that the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had sought to keep news of the outbreak from becoming public.... The decision by Mr. Pence, who leads the White House Coronavirus Task Force, to continue campaigning is certain to raise new questions about how seriously the White House is taking the risks to their own staff members...." An ABC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Maybe when Trump keeps saying, "We're rounding the corner," he means, "I work in an Oval Office." Otherwise, record-breaking cases-per-day and coming up on a quarter of a million American deaths makes no sense at all.

Superspreader-in-Chief, Ctd. Shawn Boburg of the Washington Post: "In the days leading up to the Sept. 30 [Trump rally] in Duluth, Minn., local officials had privately pressed the campaign to abide by state public health guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, documents show. In response, the campaign signed an agreement pledging to follow those rules, limiting attendance to 250 people. On the day of the rally, however, Trump supporters flooded onto the tarmac at Duluth International Airport. They stood shoulder to shoulder, many without masks.... Held two days before Trump was diagnosed with covid-19, the rally was attended by more than 2,500 people, airport officials estimated.... Emails and other documents obtained by The Washington Post through open-records requests show that Duluth officials insisted on adherence to the rules, and that the campaign responded by making commitments it ultimately did not keep. The documents also show that local officials suspected the campaign would violate the agreement, but shied away from enforcing public health orders for fear of provoking a backlash." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Officials always should have made the Trump campaign turn over at least a $1 million bond before any event. You can't trust those people as far as a mouse could throw President Fatso.

Barbie & Ken Very Upset Their Indifference to National Pandemic Makes Them Look Bad. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are threatening to sue the Lincoln Project over billboards the anti-Trump group put up in Times Square assailing them over the White House's coronavirus response. In a letter to the group posted on Twitter on Friday night, an attorney for the president's daughter and son-in-law demanded the 'false, malicious and defamatory' billboards be taken down. Marc Kasowitz warned that if the ads stay up, 'we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages.' The Lincoln Project was defiant, saying in a scathing public statement that the billboards would stay up." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Katherine Wu, et al., of the New York Times (Oct. 23): "Late-stage coronavirus vaccine trials run by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have resumed in the United States after the companies said on Friday that serious illnesses in a few volunteers appeared not to be related to the vaccines. Federal health regulators gave AstraZeneca the green light after a six-week pause.... Johnson & Johnson said that its trial, which had been on pause for 11 days, would restart after learning that a 'serious medical event' in one study volunteer had 'no clear cause.'"

Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: "Polish President Andrzej Duda has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, his spokesman announced on Saturday, the latest in a string of world leaders to be infected.... In addition to President Trump, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko are among other world leaders to have contracted the virus." Mrs. McC: Not coincidentally, every one of them is a careless, authoritarian right-winger. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Trump's Bad Bet. David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "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." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

What Not to Say When Announcing a Fake Peace Agreement. Elias Meseret of the AP (Oct. 23): "Ethiopia on Saturday denounced 'belligerent threats' over the huge dam it has nearly completed on the Blue Nile River, a day after ... Donald Trump said downstream Egypt will 'blow up' the project it has called an existential threat.... Trump made the comment while announcing that Sudan would start to normalize ties with Israel. 'They (Egypt) will end up blowing up the dam,' Trump said. 'And I said it and I say it loud and clear ... they'll blow up that dam....' Ethiopia's foreign minister summoned the U.S. ambassador to seek clarification, saying 'the incitement of war between Ethiopia and Egypt from a sitting U.S. president neither reflects the longstanding partnership and strategic alliance between Ethiopia and the United States nor is acceptable in international law governing interstate relations.'... 'The man doesn't have a clue on what he is talking about,' Former Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn tweeted, calling Trump's remark reckless and irresponsible.... Downstream Sudan is a party to the talks with Ethiopia and Egypt over the disputed dam. European Union representative Josep Borrell said in a statement that 'now is the time for action and not for increasing tensions,' adding that a deal on the dam [among affected countries] is within reach...." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump's brief self-congratulatory peace accord announcement was unique in diplomatic history. First, Sudan's legislature has not ratified the agreement, so it's not a done deal. Second, Trump managed to make two very undiplomatic gaffes: (1) inciting war between two other countries, and (2) attempting to induce a foreign leader to illegally interfere in U.S. elections. And Trump is upset that the media ignored his nomination -- by a couple of right-wing nuts -- for a Nobel Peace Prize.

The Definition of Self-Dealing. Stephen Gandel of CBS News: "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.... The USPS database shows the contract has one of the highest annual rates out of more than 1,600 contracts the Postal Service initiated with outside firms in its most recent quarter, which is the first full quarter DeJoy has served as head of the agency." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Murkowski Caves. Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the moderate Alaska Republican who had opposed voting on a new Supreme Court justice so close to the election, said Saturday she would vote to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett. In a Senate floor speech, Murkowski lamented that the Senate was spending the weekend debating a judicial nominee rather than a coronavirus relief bill days before the election. But she said she wouldn't hold her opposition to the process against Barrett, the 48-year-old conservative jurist, and would cast a vote based on the 'merits of her qualifications.' The Senate held a rare weekend session to debate the nomination...." Politico's story is here.

** Jenny Gross of the New York Times: "White supremacists and other like-minded groups have committed a majority of the terrorist attacks in the United States this year, according to a report by a security think tank that echoed warnings made by the Department of Homeland Security this month. The report, published Thursday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that white supremacist groups were responsible for 41 of 61 'terrorist plots and attacks' in the first eight months of this year, or 67 percent. The finding comes about two weeks after an annual assessment by the Department of Homeland Security warned that violent white supremacy was the 'most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland' and that white supremacists were the most deadly among domestic terrorists in recent years." Mrs. McC: Meanwhile, Trump & Barr continue to cite Black Lives Matter & antifa as the sources of lethal violence. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Richard Kreitner & Rick Perlstein, in a New York Review of Books essay, illuminate the time-honored technique of blaming "outside agitators" and "dangerous others" for violence perpetrated by the state and/or its own supporters. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See his commentary below.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Russia, Etc. Jack Stubbs & Christopher Bing of Reuters: "Russian hackers piggy-backed on an Iranian cyber-espionage operation to attack government and industry organizations in dozens of countries while masquerading as attackers from the Islamic Republic, British and U.S. officials said on Monday. The Russian group, known as 'Turla' and accused by Estonian and Czech authorities of operating on behalf of Russia's FSB security service, has used Iranian tools and computer infrastructure to successfully hack in to organizations in at least 20 different countries over the last 18 months, British security officials said. The hacking campaign, the extent of which has not been previously revealed, was most active in the Middle East but also targeted organizations in Britain, they said." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Commentariat -- October 24, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here: "The latest coronavirus surge is raging across the American heartland, most acutely in the Midwest and Mountain West. This harrowing third surge, which led to a U.S. single-day record of more than 85,000 new cases Friday, is happening less than two weeks from Election Day, which will mark the end of a campaign dominated by the pandemic and President Trump's much-criticized response to it.... The virus will be front of mind for voters in several key states: in Ohio, where more people are hospitalized than at any other time during the pandemic, and especially Wisconsin, home to seven of the country's 10 metro areas with the highest numbers of recent cases. On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked Gov. Tony Evers' emergency order restricting the size of indoor gatherings to 25 percent capacity on Friday.... President Trump and many supporters blame restrictions on business activity, often imposed by Democratic governors and mayors, for prolonging the economic crisis initially caused by the virus. But the experience of states like Iowa, which recently set a record for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, shows the economy is far from back to normal even in Republican-led states that have imposed few business restrictions."

** Jenny Gross of the New York Times: "White supremacists and other like-minded groups have committed a majority of the terrorist attacks in the United States this year, according to a report by a security think tank that echoed warnings made by the Department of Homeland Security this month. The report, published Thursday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that white supremacist groups were responsible for 41 of 61 'terrorist plots and attacks' in the first eight months of this year, or 67 percent. The finding comes about two weeks after an annual assessment by the Department of Homeland Security warned that violent white supremacy was the 'most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland' and that white supremacists were the most deadly among domestic terrorists in recent years." Mrs. McC: Meanwhile, Trump & Barr continue to cite Black Lives Matter & antifa as the sources of lethal violence.

Edgar Sandoval & Troy Closson of the New York Times: "New Yorkers flooded polling places on Saturday, the first day of early voting in the state.... Saturday was the first time New Yorkers were allowed to vote early in a presidential election, which is expected to produce record voter turnout.... Recent mishaps involving absentee ballots drove many voters to the polls on Saturday.... Late last month, the city's Board of Elections came under fire after as many as 100,000 voters in Brooklyn received absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses.... Unlike in many other states and the rest of New York, where people can cast ballots at any early voting center in their county, voters in New York City are allowed to vote early only at assigned locations."

Shawn Boburg of the Washington Post: "In the days leading up to the Sept. 30 [Trump rally] in Duluth, Minn., local officials had privately pressed the campaign to abide by state public health guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, documents show. In response, the campaign signed an agreement pledging to follow those rules, limiting attendance to 250 people. On the day of the rally, however, Trump supporters flooded onto the tarmac at Duluth International Airport. They stood shoulder to shoulder, many without masks.... Held two days before Trump was diagnosed with covid-19, the rally was attended by more than 2,500 people, airport officials estimated.... Emails and other documents obtained by The Washington Post through open-records requests show that Duluth officials insisted on adherence to the rules, and that the campaign responded by making commitments it ultimately did not keep. The documents also show that local officials suspected the campaign would violate the agreement, but shied away from enforcing public health orders for fear of provoking a backlash." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Officials always should have made the Trump campaign turn over at least a $1 million bond before any event. You can't trust those people as far as a mouse could throw President Fatso.

Trump's Bad Bet. David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "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."

Barbie & Ken Very Upset Their Indifference to National Pandemic Makes Them Look Bad. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are threatening to sue the Lincoln Project over billboards the anti-Trump group put up in Times Square assailing them over the White House's coronavirus response. In a letter to the group posted on Twitter on Friday night, an attorney for the president's daughter and son-in-law demanded the 'false, malicious and defamatory' billboards be taken down. Marc Kasowitz warned that if the ads stay up, 'we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages.' The Lincoln Project was defiant, saying in a scathing public statement that the billboards would stay up."

They Learned from the Master to Whine & Deflect Responsibility. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... Donald Trump's top advisers have plunged into a bitter round of finger-pointing and blame-shifting ahead of an increasingly likely defeat. Accusations are flying in all directions and about all manner of topics -- from allegedly questionable spending decisions by former campaign manager Brad Parscale, to how White House chief of staff Mark Meadows handled Trump's hospitalization for Covid-19, to skepticism that TV ads have broken through. Interviews with nearly a dozen Trump aides, campaign advisers and Republican officials also surfaced accusations that the president didn't take fundraising seriously enough and that the campaign undermined its effort to win over seniors by casting Democrat Joe Biden as senile. Finger-pointing is a common feature of campaigns that think they're losing, but it's happening at an uncommon level in this campaign. Shifting responsibility has been a staple of the Trump presidency -- and his lieutenants are now following suit."

The Definition of Self-Dealing. Stephen Gandel of CBS News: "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.... The USPS database shows the contract has one of the highest annual rates out of more than 1,600 contracts the Postal Service initiated with outside firms in its most recent quarter, which is the first full quarter DeJoy has served as head of the agency." --s

Jack Stubbs & Christopher Bing of Reuters: "Russian hackers piggy-backed on an Iranian cyber-espionage operation to attack government and industry organizations in dozens of countries while masquerading as attackers from the Islamic Republic, British and U.S. officials said on Monday. The Russian group, known as 'Turla' and accused by Estonian and Czech authorities of operating on behalf of Russia's FSB security service, has used Iranian tools and computer infrastructure to successfully hack in to organizations in at least 20 different countries over the last 18 months, British security officials said. The hacking campaign, the extent of which has not been previously revealed, was most active in the Middle East but also targeted organizations in Britain, they said." --s

Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: "Polish President Andrzej Duda has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, his spokesman announced on Saturday, the latest in a string of world leaders to be infected.... In addition to President Trump, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko are among other world leaders to have contracted the virus." Mrs. McC: Not coincidentally, every one of them is a careless, authoritarian right-winger.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "... Joseph R. Biden Jr. sought Friday to amplify the closing argument he delivered on the debate stage a night earlier, accusing President Trump of failing to stem the ballooning coronavirus crisis and vowing more aggressive federal action for the 'dark winter ahead.' In a speech near his home in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Biden denounced Mr. Trump's familiar assertion that the pandemic was 'rounding the corner' and 'going away' even as cases surge across the country, placing the blame for the rising death toll squarely at the president's feet.... During his address, Mr. Biden laid out the immediate steps he would take to rein in the coronavirus if elected. He also said he would ask Congress to put a bill on his desk by the end of January outlining the resources needed for the country's public health and economic response to the virus. Mr. Biden said he would ask every governor to institute mask mandates; if they refused, he said, he would work with local officials to get local mandates in place nationwide. And he said he would require masks in federal buildings and on interstate transportation." This is an item from Friday's debate live updates. ~~~

~~~ Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Joe Biden pledged Friday that if elected president he will begin reaching out to state and local leaders during the transition to begin crafting a coronavirus relief bill that he could sign by the end of January. In remarks in Wilmington, Del., after the final presidential debate, the Democratic nominee said he would look to gauge 'what support they need and how much of it they need.'... Biden again skewered President Donald Trump's handling of the virus.... 'If this is a success, what's a failure look like?' he [asked]. 'We're more than eight months into this crisis, and the president still doesn't have a plan.'"

Holly Otterbein, et al., of Politico: "Joe Biden's plan to move to a clean energy economy isn't new to those who've been paying attention: For months, he's promised to put the country on a path to be carbon-neutral by 2050. But Biden, who's been extraordinarily cautious throughout the campaign while talking about fossil fuels, clearly believes he botched his own strategy on Thursday night. Within minutes of the debate, where he said he wanted to transition away from the oil industry, Biden walked back his remarks with reporters. On Friday, his running mate Kamala Harris reaffirmed the ticket's support for fracking. And two members of Congress from oil- and gas-rich areas immediately distanced themselves from the Democratic nominee.... Donald Trump's campaign has spent the day rejoicing at Biden's remarks, crowing on a call with media outlets on Friday it 'put the nail in the coffin' for him in Pennsylvania. But in a sign of their confidence here in the presidential race, many Democrats in the critical battleground state, including those in fracking country, are largely shrugging it off."

We're going to quickly end this pandemic, this horrible plague that came in from China.... You look at what is going on and we're rounding the turn, we're rounding the corner. We're rounding the corner beautifully. -- Donald Trump at a superspreader rally in Florida's huge retirement community the Villages, Friday, the day of the highest number of reported coronavirus cases reported ~~~

~~~ ** Superspreader-in-Chief. Erin Mansfield, et al., of USA Today: "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 in the following counties: Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; Marathon, Wisconsin; Dauphin, Pennsylvania; and Beltrami, Minnesota.... The earliest post-rally spikes occurred even as the nation's overall case counts were in decline from a peak in mid-July. When U.S. cases started climbing in mid-September, Trump did not alter his campaign schedule but continued holding an average of four rallies a week."

Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Trump ... had a ready deflection for the 'kids in cages' accusation [when the topic came up at the presidential debate Thursday]. It was Mr. Biden's fault. 'They said, "Look at these cages; President Trump built them,"' Mr. Trump said. 'And then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him.'... The Obama administration separated children from adults at the border only in cases when there was a doubt about the familial relationship between a child and an accompanying adult or if the adult had a serious criminal record. Mr. Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy was a deliberate act of family separation, meant to deter migrants from trying to enter the United States. It directed prosecutors to file criminal charges against everyone who crossed the border without authorization, including parents, who were then separated from their children when they were taken into custody. That policy was ended amid international outcry, but its repercussions remain."

Elahe Izadi & Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "During the final presidential debate, President Trump made reference to 'the laptop from hell,' 'AOC plus three' and 'Russia, Russia, Russia.'... The material was very familiar to -- and maybe only familiar to -- regular viewers of Fox News opinion hosts such as Sean Hannity. 'I feel like he almost was speaking the language of Fox prime time,' Chuck Todd ... said on NBC after the debate. 'If you watch a lot of Fox prime time, you understand what he's saying. If you don't, you have no idea.'... 'Some of the punches he threw at Joe Biden I don't think landed, because unless you were Sean Hannity, you probably had no idea what he was talking about,' CNN host Jake Tapper said." Mrs. McC: We thought Trump's vocabulary had grown more and more limited, but it turns out he's just dropped a normal English vocabulary & replaced it with right-wing buzzwords & phrases. (Also linked yesterday.)

Prize for Best String of Words in the Debate Goes to Donald Trump: "I take full responsibility. It's not my fault...."

Prize for Audacity Goes to Donald Trump: To Kristen Welker: "I am the least racist person in this room."

Presidential Election 2016. Sarah Blaskey, et al. of the Miami Herald: "Donald Trump’s team knew they couldn't win the 2016 election simply by persuading people to vote for Trump.... So the campaign and its allies used big data to target Black communities along Miami-Dade County's historically disenfranchised Interstate 95 corridor. There, residents became some of the 12.3 million unwitting subjects of a groundbreaking nationwide experiment: A computer algorithm that analyzed huge sums of potential voters' personal data -- things they'd said and done on Facebook, credit card purchases, charities they supported, and even personality traits -- decided they could be manipulated into not voting. They probably wouldn't even know it was happening.... They called it 'deterrence.'... Behind the 2016 deterrence campaign was Cambridge Analytica ... at a time when Stephen Bannon, eventually hired to lead the Trump campaign, was the firm's vice president[.]" --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "... Republicans are hostile to greater democracy, where democracy means equal representation in a federal system of separated powers. Name a proposal that would enlarge the scope of American democracy -- more states, a national popular vote, a larger House of Representatives -- and Republicans (or their conservative allies) are almost certain to oppose it.... The Republican Party ... is a minority party representing a demographically narrow segment of the American electorate. It needs stasis -- institutional and constitutional -- to survive. Democrats do not.... The question of whether Democrats will abolish the filibuster or expand the courts or create new states, should they win power, is actually a question of whether Democrats will bring dynamism to the American political system.... But if they have any desire to reverse the damage of the past four years -- if they want to return to something like normalcy -- then the path to stability begins with transformation."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Davey Alba of the New York Times: "... Fox News is giving more airtime to the unverified Hunter Biden emails than it did to the hacked emails from [John] Podesta in 2016, according to an analysis from the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies disinformation.... In contrast, most viewers of CNN and MSNBC would not have heard much about the unconfirmed Hunter Biden emails, according to the analysis.... As for online news outlets, 85 percent of the 1,000 most popular articles about the Hunter Biden emails were by right-leaning sites, according to the analysis. Those articles, which were shared 28 million times, came from The New York Post, Fox Business, Fox News and The Washington Times, among other outlets."

Florida. Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald: "A generation more familiar with TikTok, Instagram and XBox has the potential to make the difference in Florida's toss-up presidential race between two seventy-somethings. Younger voters this year have been registering and casting ballots in bigger numbers than previous years and, if the presidential race in Florida is as close as polls predict, it will be decided by the margins. There about 1.1 million additional new Florida voters between 18 and 34 in 2020 than there were in 2016.... According to an analysis by Catalist, a progressive polling organization that is monitoring Florida's voting trends among a slightly broader age group, ages 18 to 39, turnout has increased 44% among those voters compared to 2016." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Georgia. Frank Bajak of the AP: "A ransomware attack that hobbled a Georgia county government in early October reportedly disabled a database used to verify voter signatures in the authentication of absentee ballots. It is the first reported case of a ransomware attack affecting an election-related system in the 2020 cycle. Federal officials and cybersecurity experts are especially concerned that ransomware attacks -- even ones that don't intentionally target election infrastructure -- could disrupt voting and damage confidence in the integrity of the Nov. 3 election." --s ~~~

~~~ Republicans Donate to Crazy Candidate. Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "After weeks of wavering, the national Republican party has formally thrown its support behind Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican House candidate who is openly supportive of QAnon. The National Republican Congressional Committee donated $5,000 to Greene's congressional campaign on September 25, according to campaign finance records -- the maximum amount the committee can donate. The donation formalizes the GOP's acceptance of Greene's candidacy after top officials in the party had signaled hesitancy in backing her."

Iowa. Trip Gabriel & Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "Iowa's governor [Kim Reynolds] is not on the ballot next month. But her defiant attitude toward the advice of health experts on how to fight the coronavirus outbreak, as her state sees a grim tide of new cases and deaths, may be dragging down fellow Republicans who are running, including Mr. Trump and Senator Joni Ernst. Ms. Reynolds, the first woman to lead Iowa, is an avatar of the president's approach to the pandemic, refusing to issue mandates and flouting the guidance of infectious disease experts, who say that universal masking and social distancing are essential to limiting the virus's spread. Defying that advice has eroded support for both Mr. Trump and Ms. Reynolds in Iowa, especially among voters over 65, normally a solid Republican constituency, according to public and private polls."

Pennsylvania. State Supremes Are Getting Sick of the Trump Campaign's Whining. Zach Montellaro of Politico: "The Pennsylvania state Supreme Court ruled Friday that ballots in the state cannot be rejected because of signature comparisons, backing up guidance issued by the state's chief elections officer heading into Pennsylvania's first presidential election with no-excuse mail voting. The ruling is a defeat for ... Donald Trump's campaign and other Republicans, who had challenged the decision by Pennsylvania election officials.... [The opinion was] signed by six of the seven justices, including five Democrats and one Republican. The seventh justice, another Republican, concurred with the ruling." Mrs. McC: This is the fifth or sixth voter case the Trump campaign has lost in state court.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Campbell Robertson, et al., of the New York Times: "The United States is in the midst of one of the most severe surges of the coronavirus to date, with more new cases reported across the country on Friday than on any other single day since the pandemic began. Since the start of October, the rise in cases has been steady and inexorable, with no plateau in sight. By Friday evening, more than 82,000 cases had been reported across the country, breaking a single-day record set on July 16 by more than 6,000 cases. By that measure, Friday was the worst day of the pandemic, and health experts warned of a further surge as cold weather sets in."

Trump Eliminated Vaccine Safety Office. Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "For now, Operation Warp Speed, created by the Trump administration to spearhead development of coronavirus vaccines and treatments, is focused on getting vaccines through clinical trials in record time and manufacturing them quickly. The next job will be to monitor the safety of vaccines once they're in widespread use. But the administration last year quietly disbanded the office with the expertise for exactly this job, merging it into an office focused on infectious diseases. Its elimination has left that long-term safety effort for coronavirus vaccines fragmented among federal agencies, with no central leadership, experts say. [Plus:] In 2016, President Barack Obama set up a global health security office at the National Security Council. But in 2018, the Trump administration disbanded that office, saying it was streamlining bureaucratic bloat." ~~~

      ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The irresponsibility of All the Best People is breathtaking. With any luck, Trump will be living in an undisclosed location somewhere in Moscow by the time Americans have access to vaccines, but it will be a big, expensive job to re-establish the "safety central command" that the Trumpies disbanded.

The Trump Plan to Defeat the Coronavirus. Thanks to RockyGirl for the link. And thanks to the Biden campaign.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The average number of covid-19 hospitalizations has risen in at least 38 states over the past week -- a trend that cannot be explained by more widespread testing -- according to data tracked by The Washington Post." (Also linked yesterday.)

Lena Sun & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has been pressuring health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to endorse the use of border hotels to hold migrant children before deporting them, a practice the government halted last month under court order, according to federal health officials. Career CDC officials have declined to sign off on a declaration requested by the Department of Health and Human Services affirming that the use of hotels to detain migrant children is the best way to protect them from the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to one HHS official who has seen the declaration.... The request from HHS is the latest example of the administration's efforts to use government scientists and physicians to advance the president's political agenda." (Also linked yesterday.)

Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: A scatter graph produced by "Carnegie Mellon's CovidCast, an academic project tracking real-time coronavirus statistics, yields a particularly vivid illustration of how mask usage influences the prevalence of covid-19 symptoms in a given area. For all 50 states plus D.C., this chart plots the percentage of state residents who say they wear a mask in public all or most of the time (on the horizontal axis) and the percentage who say they know someone in their community with virus symptoms (on the vertical axis).... [For those of you who passed Statistics 101:] The R-squared of CovidCast's mask and symptom data is 0.73, meaning that you can predict about 73 percent of the variability in state-level covid-19 symptom prevalence simply by knowing how often people wear their masks." Ingraham points out several factors that could have influenced the results. "Nevertheless, the chart is particularly useful in the context of all the other high-quality evidence showing that masks reduce the transmission of the coronavirus and other respiratory diseases." (Also linked yesterday.)

Susanne Craig, et al., of the New York Times: "In President Trump's telling, he is a committed philanthropist with strong ties to many charities.... And according to his tax records, he has given back at least $130 million since 2005, his second year as a reality TV star. But the long-hidden tax records, obtained by The New York Times, show that Mr. Trump did not have to reach into his wallet for most of that giving. The vast bulk of his charitable tax deductions, $119.3 million worth, came from simply agreeing not to develop land -- in several cases, after he had shelved development plans.... The New York attorney general is investigating whether the appraisals on two of Mr. Trump's easement donations were improperly inflated to win larger tax breaks, according to court filings. Mr. Trump's pronouncements of philanthropic largess have been broadly discredited by reporting, most notably in The Washington Post, that found he had exaggerated, or simply never made, an array of claimed contributions. His own charitable foundation shut down in 2018 amid allegations of self-dealing to benefit Mr. Trump, his businesses and his campaign."

I don't make money from China. You do. -- Donald Trump, to Joe Biden, presidential debate Thursday ~~~

~~~ ** Dan Alexander of Forbes: "... 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. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China signed a lease for space in 2008, years before the president took office, paying about $1.9 million in annual rent. Trump is well-aware of the deal.... Government-owned entities in China hold at least 70% of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Suddenly, a routine real estate deal became a conduit for a foreign superpower to pay the president of the United States." Even though Eric Trump said in early 2017 that his father would donate to the U.S. Treasury profits from "all the properties," Donald Trump has not donated the profits from the Chinese bank lease. "Trump has other financial connections to China." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Biden has released decades of his tax returns. There's no evidence Biden has "made money from China." This is just the 999th iteration of Trump's infamous & despicable projection.

So it's now my great honor to sign the VA Mission Act, or as we all know it, the Choice Act, and to make Veterans Choice the permanent law of our great country. -- Donald Trump, June 6, 2018 ~~~

~~~ "Trump's Mendacity Is a Hallmark of His Presidency." Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "The first time President Trump claimed false credit for the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act -- which President Barack Obama signed into law in 2014 -- was on June 6, 2018. That day, as Trump signed the Mission Act, a modest update to the bipartisan VA Choice legislation, he seemed to conflate the two.... In the coming weeks, Trump began systematically erasing from the legislation's history not just Obama but also the late senator John McCain (R-Ariz.).... That didn't stop Trump from falsely claiming -- as he did at a tank factory in Lima, Ohio, in March 2019 -- that McCain, his frequent political rival, failed to make any progress on the VA Choice Act. 'McCain didn't get the job done for our great vets and the VA, and they knew it,' Trump said. More than two years after signing the Mission Act..., Trump has repeated some version of his VA Choice Act mistruth more than 156 times.... The president's handling of the VA Choice legislation offers a crystalline window into the anatomy of a Trump lie: the initial false claim, the subsequent embellishment and gilding, the incessant repetition and the clear evidence that he knows the truth but chooses to keep telling the falsehood -- all enabled by aides either unwilling or unable to rein him in."

Lisa Rein, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump's extraordinary directive allowing his administration to weed out career federal employees viewed as disloyal in a second term is the product of a four-year campaign by conservatives working from a little-known West Wing policy shop. Soon after Trump took office, a young aide [-- James Sherk --] hired from the Heritage Foundation with bold ideas for reining in the sprawling bureaucracy of 2.1 million came up with a blueprint. Trump would hold employees accountable, sideline their labor unions and give the president more power to hire and fire them, much like political appointees.... The result this week threatens to be the most significant assault on the nonpartisan civil service in its 137-year history: a sweeping executive order that strips job protections from employees in policy roles across the government. Exactly which roles would be affected will be up to personnel officials at federal agencies, who were tasked on Friday with reviewing all of their jobs and deciding who would qualify."

Caitlin Dickerson of the New York Times: "... about 600 people [are] stranded in ... a refugee camp on the doorstep of the United States, one of several that have sprung up along the border for the first time in the country's history. After first cropping up in 2018, the encampment across the border from Brownsville, Texas, exploded to nearly 3,000 people the following year under a policy that has required at least 60,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for the entirety of their legal cases, which can take years.... Many have been living in fraying tents for more than a year.... The Trump administration has said the 'remain in Mexico' policy was essential.... The Mexican authorities have blamed the American government for the situation. But they have also declined to designate the outdoor areas as official refugee camps in collaboration with the United Nations, which could then have provided infrastructure for housing and sanitation.... The U.S. Supreme Court agreed this week to review the policy after it was successfully challenged in the federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit."

Deb Reichmann & Matthew Lee of the AP: "... Donald Trump announced Friday that Sudan will start to normalize ties with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so as part of U.S.-brokered deals in the run-up to Election Day. The deal, which would deepen Sudan's engagement with the West, follows Trump's conditional agreement this week to remove the North African nation from the list of state sponsors of terrorism if it pays compensation to American victims of terror attacks. It also delivers a foreign policy achievement for Trump just days before the U.S. election and boosts his embattled ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Recently, the United States brokered diplomatic pacts between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Jordan recognized Israel in the 1990s." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A photo accompanying the story pictures Trump in the Oval surrounded by 11 men & one woman applauding Donald Trump. They appeal to be Cabinet members & aides. They are standing close together, and none is wearing a mask except the woman, who is seated & appears to be pregnant. There is nothing Trump would change about his response to the coronavirus because he has saved millions of lives by cancelling some flights from China. ~~~

~~~ Sounds as if Bibi thinks Joe will will the election:

     ~~~  Quint Forgey of Politico: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday passed up an opportunity to knock Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, seemingly deflating ... Donald Trump in the presence of reporters in the Oval Office.... Trump asked Netanyahu: 'Do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal, Bibi? Sleepy Joe? I think -- do you think he would have made this deal somehow? I don't think so.' Netanyahu hesitated before offering a halting answer: 'Well, Mr. President, one thing I can tell you is we appreciate the help for peace from anyone in America. And we appreciate what you've done enormously.' The smile on the president's face faded as he listened to the prime minister's response."

     ~~~ Just after Netanyahu shoots down Trump's flagrant attempt to get him to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, Trump makes fun of reporter Jeff Mason's mask. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, wait. The whole "agreement" may be fake, nothing more than Trump's attempt at a mini-October surprise. It seems one of the party's to the agreement has not agreed to it:

~~~ ** Times of Israel: "Following the announcement of Sudan's normalization agreement with Israel on Friday, Sudan's acting foreign minister said the agreement still depends on approval from the Sudanese legislative council, which has not yet been formed as the government goes through transition.... It remains unclear when a transitional parliament will be formed amid negotiations between the civilian and military parts of the transitional government. Whether or not to normalize ties with Israel has been a matter of vehement debate within Sudan's transitional government, with its military wing, headed by Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman al-Burhan, said in favor, but [Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla] Hamdok opposed. Trump announced the Israel-Sudan deal on Friday at the White House in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sudan's leaders." --s

All the Best Friends. Nicole Hong & Jesse Drucker of the New York Times: "Ken Kurson, a close friend of ... Jared Kushner, was taken into federal custody on Friday and charged with cyberstalking in connection with his divorce. Mr. Kurson, who now runs a media company and works in the cryptocurrency industry, helped write a speech for the president's 2016 campaign. When Mr. Kushner owned The New York Observer, the weekly newspaper, he appointed Mr. Kurson to be its editor in chief in 2013. Mr. Kurson was also a longtime associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani.... Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused Mr. Kurson of sending threatening and stalking messages to several people.... The F.B.I. has also gathered evidence that Mr. Kurson engaged in a similar pattern of harassment during his divorce proceedings in 2015, including installing software on someone's computer to monitor keystrokes, the criminal complaint said. He also used aliases to contact that person's employer to report false allegations of misconduct, according to the complaint." (Also linked yesterday.)

Justice System For Sale. Robert Maguire of CREW: "A close informal advisor [Leonard Leo] to President Trump who has been deeply involved in all three of his Supreme Court nomination battles is the sole trustee of a mysterious group [Rule of Law Trust (RLT)] that brought in more than $80 million in 2018, according to a previously unreported tax return uncovered by CREW. The filing vastly expands the amount of money known to be flowing into the growing constellation of dark money groups tied to Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo and provides new details about his role in a secretive firm that was responsible for one of the largest donations received by President Trump's inaugural committee.... [The group] claimed it had no employees and no volunteers in its first year and listed what appears to be a virtual office in Virginia as its main address.... There's no apparent public information to demonstrate what that work entails, not even a website." --s

Ted Barrett & Clare Foran of CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not answer questions about his health Thursday, only saying there were 'no concerns' after reporters asked him about what appeared to be bruises and bandages on his hands in recent days. 'Of course not,' McConnell told reporters in the Capitol when asked if he had any health issues people should know about.... In 2019, McConnell fractured his shoulder after he tripped and fell at his Kentucky home. He also underwent triple heart bypass surgery in 2003." With photos. --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Lois Beckett of the Guardian & Agency: "A rightwing extremist boasted of driving from Texas to Minneapolis to help set fire to a police precinct during the George Floyd protests, federal prosecutors said. US attorney Erica MacDonald said on Friday that she had charged Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old Texas resident, with traveling across state lines to participate in a riot. The charges are the latest example of far-right extremists attempting to use violence to escalate national protests against police brutality into an uprising against the government, and even full civil war. The case also reveals the extent of the coordination between violent members of the nascent far-right 'Boogaloo Bois' movement operating in different cities across the country.... Video shot [the night of May 28] shows a person later identified as Hunter firing 13 rounds from a semiautomatic assault-style rifle on the 3rd precinct police station while people believed to be looters were inside."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Russia. Bellingcat: "On October 15, 2020, the European Union imposed sanctions on six senior Russian officials and a leading Russian research institute over the alleged use of a nerve agent from the Novichok family in the poisoning of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.... Russian officials said the country had nothing to do with Navalny's poisoning.... [In 2018] Russia had ... stated that it had no ongoing chemical weapons program and had destroyed all of its prior arsenals.... A year-long investigation by Bellingcat and its investigative partners ... has discovered evidence that Russia continued its Novichok development program long beyond the officially announced closure date.... Crucially for our conclusions, we have identified evidence showing close coordination between ... two institutes and a secretive sub-unit of Military Unit 29155 of Russia's military intelligence, the GRU." --s

Vatican. Jason Horowitz & Natalie Kitroeff of the New York Times: "Pope Francis was an hour into a sprawling interview with a Mexican journalist at his Vatican residence in 2019 when he was asked if he had changed since his time as archbishop of Argentina, when he staunchly opposed gay marriage. Francis responded that he had always defended the church's teaching on marriage, then began to delve into the question of legalizing same-sex relationships when suddenly the video skipped forward. 'One changes in life,' he said. The words that went missing -- expressing support for same-sex civil unions -- surfaced only this week in a new documentary.... But the clip also became the subject of sudden intrigue over when and where the pope made the remarks, and why they were only now being made public. Two people close to the [Mexican broadcaster Televisa]..., said that the Vatican had required that the interview be filmed with Vatican cameras and that the Vatican be given control over the footage. The Vatican cut out the pope's remarks on same-sex unions in the edited version provided to Televisa, the two people said.... The Church allowed a documentary filmmaker access to the Vatican archives, including the raw footage of the Televisa interview. The filmmaker put the clip in a new documentary...." (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

NBC News: "Colorado has seen three of its largest wildfires in state history occur this year, two of which are still growing. The largest wildfire currently burning in the state is the Cameron Peak Fire, which has scorched more than 206,000 acres, according to the fire-reporting site InciWeb. As of Friday morning, it was 57 percent contained. The blaze erupted on Aug. 13 and flared up recently due to warm and dry weather, prompting evacuation warnings for several areas. The cause of the fire is still being investigated. Firefighters in the state have also been responding to the East Troublesome Fire, which has grown to more than 170,000 acres, now the second-largest in Colorado. It was only 5 percent contained as of Friday morning."

The Commentariat -- October 23, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Prize for Best String of Words in the Debate Goes to Donald Trump: "I take full responsibility. It’s not my fault...."

Prize for Audacity Goes to Donald Trump: To Kristen Welker: "I am the least racist person in this room."

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The average number of covid-19 hospitalizations has risen in at least 38 states over the past week — a trend that cannot be explained by more widespread testing — according to data tracked by The Washington Post."

Elahe Izadi & Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: “During the final presidential debate, President Trump made reference to 'the laptop from hell,' 'AOC plus three' and 'Russia, Russia, Russia.'... The material was very familiar to — and maybe only familiar to — regular viewers of Fox News opinion hosts such as Sean Hannity. 'I feel like he almost was speaking the language of Fox prime time,' Chuck Todd ... said on NBC after the debate. 'If you watch a lot of Fox prime time, you understand what he’s saying. If you don’t, you have no idea.'... 'Some of the punches he threw at Joe Biden I don’t think landed, because unless you were Sean Hannity, you probably had no idea what he was talking about,' CNN host Jake Tapper said.” Mrs. McC: We thought Trump's vocabulary had grown more and more limited, but it turns out he's just dropped a normal English vocabulary & replaced it with right-wing buzzwords & phrases.

Lena Sun & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has been pressuring health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to endorse the use of border hotels to hold migrant children before deporting them, a practice the government halted last month under court order, according to federal health officials. Career CDC officials have declined to sign off on a declaration requested by the Department of Health and Human Services affirming that the use of hotels to detain migrant children is the best way to protect them from the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to one HHS official who has seen the declaration.... The request from HHS is the latest example of the administration’s efforts to use government scientists and physicians to advance the president’s political agenda."

Deb Reichmann & Matthew Lee of the AP: "... Donald Trump announced Friday that Sudan will start to normalize ties with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so as part of U.S.-brokered deals in the run-up to Election Day. The deal, which would deepen Sudan’s engagement with the West, follows Trump’s conditional agreement this week to remove the North African nation from the list of state sponsors of terrorism if it pays compensation to American victims of terror attacks. It also delivers a foreign policy achievement for Trump just days before the U.S. election and boosts his embattled ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Recently, the United States brokered diplomatic pacts between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Jordan recognized Israel in the 1990s." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A photo accompanying the story pictures Trump in the Oval surrounded by 11 men & one woman applauding Donald Trump. They appeal to be Cabinet members & aides. They are standing close together, and none is wearing a mask except the woman, who is seated & appears to be pregnant. There is nothing Trump would change about his response to the coronavirus because he has saved millions of lives by cancelling some flights from China. ~~~

~~~ Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: A scatter graph produced by "Carnegie Mellon’s CovidCast, an academic project tracking real-time coronavirus statistics, yields a particularly vivid illustration of how mask usage influences the prevalence of covid-19 symptoms in a given area. For all 50 states plus D.C., this chart plots the percentage of state residents who say they wear a mask in public all or most of the time (on the horizontal axis) and the percentage who say they know someone in their community with virus symptoms (on the vertical axis).... [For those of you who passed Statistics 101:] The R-squared of CovidCast’s mask and symptom data is 0.73, meaning that you can predict about 73 percent of the variability in state-level covid-19 symptom prevalence simply by knowing how often people wear their masks." Ingraham points out several factors that could have influenced the results. "Nevertheless, the chart is particularly useful in the context of all the other high-quality evidence showing that masks reduce the transmission of the coronavirus and other respiratory diseases."

Nicole Hong & Jesse Drucker of the New York Times: "Ken Kurson, a close friend of ... Jared Kushner, was taken into federal custody on Friday and charged with cyberstalking in connection with his divorce. Mr. Kurson, who now runs a media company and works in the cryptocurrency industry, helped write a speech for the president’s 2016 campaign. When Mr. Kushner owned The New York Observer, the weekly newspaper, he appointed Mr. Kurson to be its editor in chief in 2013. Mr. Kurson was also a longtime associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani.... Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused Mr. Kurson of sending threatening and stalking messages to several people.... The F.B.I. has also gathered evidence that Mr. Kurson engaged in a similar pattern of harassment during his divorce proceedings in 2015, including installing software on someone’s computer to monitor keystrokes, the criminal complaint said. He also used aliases to contact that person’s employer to report false allegations of misconduct, according to the complaint."

Jason Horowitz & Natalie Kitroeff of the New York Times: “Pope Francis was an hour into a sprawling interview with a Mexican journalist at his Vatican residence in 2019 when he was asked if he had changed since his time as archbishop of Argentina, when he staunchly opposed gay marriage. Francis responded that he had always defended the church’s teaching on marriage, then began to delve into the question of legalizing same-sex relationships when suddenly the video skipped forward. 'One changes in life,' he said. The words that went missing — expressing support for same-sex civil unions — surfaced only this week in a new documentary.... But the clip also became the subject of sudden intrigue over when and where the pope made the remarks, and why they were only now being made public. Two people close to the [Mexican broadcaster Televisa]..., said that the Vatican had required that the interview be filmed with Vatican cameras and that the Vatican be given control over the footage. The Vatican cut out the pope’s remarks on same-sex unions in the edited version provided to Televisa, the two people said.... The Church allowed a documentary filmmaker access to the Vatican archives, including the raw footage of the Televisa interview. The filmmaker put the clip in a new documentary....”

Ted Barrett & Clare Foran of CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not answer questions about his health Thursday, only saying there were 'no concerns' after reporters asked him about what appeared to be bruises and bandages on his hands in recent days. 'Of course not,' McConnell told reporters in the Capitol when asked if he had any health issues people should know about.... In 2019, McConnell fractured his shoulder after he tripped and fell at his Kentucky home. He also underwent triple heart bypass surgery in 2003. A statement released by his office at the time described the operation as a success." With photos. --s

Sarah Blaskey, et al. of the Miami Herald: "Donald Trump’s team knew they couldn’t win the 2016 election simply by persuading people to vote for Trump.... So the campaign and its allies used big data to target Black communities along Miami-Dade County’s historically disenfranchised Interstate 95 corridor. There, residents became some of the 12.3 million unwitting subjects of a groundbreaking nationwide experiment: A computer algorithm that analyzed huge sums of potential voters’ personal data — things they’d said and done on Facebook, credit card purchases, charities they supported, and even personality traits — decided they could be manipulated into not voting. They probably wouldn’t even know it was happening.... They called it 'deterrence.'... Behind the 2016 deterrence campaign was Cambridge Analytica ... at a time when Stephen Bannon, eventually hired to lead the Trump campaign, was the firm’s vice president[.]" --s

Florida. Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald: "A generation more familiar with TikTok, Instagram and XBox has the potential to make the difference in Florida’s toss-up presidential race between two seventy-somethings. Younger voters this year have been registering and casting ballots in bigger numbers than previous years and, if the presidential race in Florida is as close as polls predict, it will be decided by the margins. There about 1.1 million additional new Florida voters between 18 and 34 in 2020 than there were in 2016.... According to an analysis by Catalist, a progressive polling organization that is monitoring Florida’s voting trends among a slightly broader age group, ages 18 to 39, turnout has increased 44% among those voters compared to 2016." --s

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Debate

Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: “President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. delivered starkly divergent closing arguments to the country in the final presidential debate on Thursday, offering opposite prognoses for the coronavirus pandemic and airing irreconcilable differences on subjects from rescuing the economy and bolstering the health care system to fighting climate change and reshaping the immigration policy.... Mr. Trump, who badgered Mr. Biden with increasing aggression over the course of the debate, appeared determined to cast his opponent as a career politician who was, as he jabbed toward the end of the debate, 'all talk and no action.' And the president used the event as his most prominent platform yet for airing unsubstantiated or baseless attacks about the finances of Mr. Biden and members of his family. Mr. Trump, however, did little to lay out an affirmative case for his own re-election, or to explain in clear terms what he would hope to do with another four years in the White House. He frequently misrepresented the facts of his own record, and Mr. Biden’s. And on his most important political vulnerability — his mismanagement of the pandemic — Mr. Trump hewed unswervingly to a message that happy days are nearly here again....” Here's the AP's main story by Jonathan Lemire & others.

The Guardian's summary report by Lauren Gambino is here. ~~~

      ~~~ Guardian opinion writers offer their takeaways here. Jill Filipovic: “If one single thing shone through in Thursday’s debate, it was that Donald Trump has absolutely nothing to say. He has no agenda. He has no plan. He has no ideals or hopes or purpose. All he has is the raw pursuit of power – for his own benefit, no one else’s. Trump failed to put forward even one specific policy he will push in his second term. He offered some vague hand-waving – he (or the US supreme court) will get rid of Obamacare and he’ll replace it with something better, no you haven’t seen his plan..., but he’s working on it, it’s almost done, he swears.... Instead, he was purely reactive. Joe Biden would put forward an idea, and Trump’s response was: 'Well why didn’t you do that when you were in office?' Trump is in office, and while a lot has changed in four years, there’s little he can be proud of.”

Rev has a full transcript of the debate.

Bill Barrow & Zeke Miller of the AP outline key takeaways. Here's one: “Trump’s difficulty articulating a defense of his handling of the coronavirus remains a drag on his campaign. The opening topic of the debate was entirely predictable — Trump has received variations of the same question in interviews and has rarely delivered a clear answer. Asked to outline his plan for the future, Trump instead asserted his prior handling was without fault and predicted a rosy reversal to the pandemic, which has killed more than 223,000 people in the United States. 'We’re rounding the turn, we’re rounding the corner,' Trump claimed, even as cases spike again across the country. 'It’s going away.' Biden, who has sought to prosecute Trump’s handling of the virus in his closing pitch to voters, came prepared. 'Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America,' he said. Biden added: 'He says we’re, you know, we’re learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it.'”

Trump Can Behave Himself for up to an Hour When His Political Life Depends upon It. Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: “President Trump adopted a more measured tone at the start of the final presidential debate as he and ... Joe Biden sparred in the first section focused on the coronavirus pandemic. The debate grew more combative and personal as it continued, as Biden brought up Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, claiming he was being used as a 'Russian pawn,' and Trump went on to press Biden on his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. Still, the debate seemed more organized and less contentious than the first one, perhaps due in part to the new rule implemented by the Commission on Presidential Debates that muted candidates’ microphones so that each could have two minutes of uninterrupted time to speak at the beginning of each 15-minute segment.”

New York Times reporters' fact-check is here. The lede: “... President Trump unleashed an unrelenting series of false, misleading and exaggerated statements as he sought to distort former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s record and positions and boost his own re-election hopes. The president once again relied heavily on well-worn talking points that have long been shown to be false. The president appeared determined to reinvent the reality of the last four years — and the history of the pandemic in 2020 — as he faces judgment on his actions in just 12 days. He once again falsely dismissed the Russia investigations as a 'phony witch hunt.' He insisted that aside from Abraham Lincoln, 'nobody has done more for the Black community,' an assertion that people in both parties find laughable. And he tried again to wish away the pandemic, saying 'we are rounding the turn' even as daily cases of the virus this week topped 70,000 in the United States for the first time since July.” ~~~

~~~ Glenn Kessler, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump yet again broke the fact-check meter at the second presidential debate, while Democratic nominee Joe Biden made relatively few gaffes. Here’s a roundup of 25 of the most noteworthy claims that initially caught our interest, virtually all of them by Trump."

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but this debate -- moderated by a woman -- was a debate targeting American women. Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid & Nicolle Wallace did post-debate analysis for MSNBC, and besides pointing out many of Trump's bald-faced lies, his callousness on the coronavirus, Black Lives Matter & children in cages brought them to tears. Trump is getting kudos for not blowing up until the last half-hour of the debate, and for not calling Welker a POS, without accounting for what he was actually saying/lying about his terrible administration & certainly without providing any outline for his plans for a second term. I guess when your one & only plan is More Graft & Corruption, you don't want to let on.

Jeremy Stahl of Slate: “At Thursday’s debate, moderator Kristen Welker asked ... Donald Trump about his since discontinued and unlawful policy of separating children from their parents at the border without any plan to return them as a 'deterrent' for undocumented immigration.... At first, Trump blamed smugglers for bringing children over the border, not admitting that these children had come with their parents and been taken from them on orders from his administration. When the president finally acknowledged the reality, though, he ... [said,] 'They are so well taken care of.... They’re in facilities that were so clean.'... His administration has also argued in court that it need not provide detained children with a 'toothbrush,' 'towels,' 'dry clothing,' 'soap,' or 'sleep.'... He did not mention the at least six children who have died in CBP custody in less than a year.... After further discussion of [President] Obama’s harsh deportation policies — which ... did not include family separation — [Joe] Biden ... [said,] 'You have 525 kids not knowing in God’s name where they’re going to be and lost their parents,' he said. After an evening in which Trump repeatedly interrupted Welker and Biden to try to get the last word in nearly every exchange, this was one subject he was eager to move on from. 'Go ahead,' he said as Welker attempted to change topics.”

Trump Lost This Debate by Less Than He Lost the First Debate. Jennifer Agiesta of CNN: "Joe Biden did a better job in the final debate on Thursday, according to a CNN Instant Poll of debate watchers. Overall, 53% of voters who watched the debate said that Biden won the matchup, while 39% said that ... Donald Trump did. Viewers once again said that Biden's criticisms of Trump were largely fair (73% said they were fair, 26% unfair), and they split over whether Trump's attacks on Biden were fair (50% said yes, 49% no). That's a more positive outcome for Trump. In a CNN Instant Poll after the first presidential debate, just 28% said they thought the President had won the debate, and 67% called his criticism of Biden unfair."

The New York Times' live updates of the debate are here. ** New York Times reporters' live analysis is here. The page has live video of the debate.

Washington Post opinion columnists are liveblogging the debate here. The page has live video of the debate.

The Guardian's live updates of the debate are here.

~~~ Presidential Race, Etc.

Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: “Joe Biden said Thursday he would name a bipartisan commission to propose an overhaul of the Supreme Court and federal judiciary because the current system is 'getting out of whack,' following weeks of pressure to endorse or reject a push by liberals to expand the court. Biden has repeatedly avoided saying directly whether he would accept a court expansion plan promoted by Democrats angry at Republicans’ speedy confirmation process for Amy Coney Barrett, who is expected to be approved by the full Senate within days. Thursday’s comments to CBS’s '60 Minutes' were Biden’s fullest response on the subject.” Mrs. McC Note to Ken W.: Biden has not yet released video of the interview nor tweeted about the interviewer's bias, hatred and rudeness.

Jeremy Barr & Elahe Izadi of the Washington Post: “President Trump followed through on his threat, or promise, to release video of his interview with CBS News journalist Lesley Stahl before it is set to air on '60 Minutes' on Sunday night.... On Thursday morning, after he again teased a release of the video ('the vicious attempted “takeout” interview of me'), a 37-minute clip of the interview appeared on the president’s Facebook page. In posting the interview, Trump and the White House violated an agreement with CBS News that the White House was taping the interview 'for archival purposes only,' said a network source with knowledge of the interview.... 'The White House’s unprecedented decision to disregard their agreement with CBS News and release their footage will not deter “60 Minutes” from providing its full, fair and contextual reporting which presidents have participated in for decades,' the network said.” Mrs. McC: Why, you might think Trump can't be trusted to honor even the simplest, clearest agreement. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS. Tonight’s anchor, Kristen Welker, is far worse! -- Donald Trump, Thursday, in a tweet ~~~

     ~~~ Jill Colvin of the AP: “The footage shows Trump growing increasingly prickly as CBS anchor Lesley Stahl presses him on a host of topics, including his response to the coronavirus pandemic, his slipping support among suburban women, the lack of masks at his rallies, and the 'Obamacare' replacement plan he has long promised but failed to unveil.... And he again preemptively criticized the moderator of Thursday night’s final presidential debate.... As Trump continued to throw unsubstantiated allegations at [Joe] Biden and former President Barack Obama, Stahl tried to explain: 'This is “60 Minutes” and we can’t put on things we can’t verify.'... 'Leslie [Lesley], you’re discrediting yourself,' he said.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: “... Donald Trump on Thursday released video footage of the tense interviews he and Vice President Mike Pence had separately with '60 Minutes' correspondent Lesley Stahl, including a particularly combative exchange in which Stahl accuses both men of having 'insulted' her and the news program. In Stahl’s interview with Pence, which took place after Trump cut short his earlier conversation with Stahl and would not film what was supposed to be a joint appearance..., [Stahl said,] 'This was not a rally. This was not just a campaign speech to the public. This was supposed to be an interview, and the same with the president.... And I feel that you both have insulted “60 Minutes” and me by not answering any of our questions and by giving set campaign speeches that we’ve heard both of you give at rallies and not answering our questions.'” ~~~

~~~ AP: “... Donald Trump says 'it will be so good' if the Supreme Court puts an end to the Obama-era health law when the justices hear challenges to the Affordable Care Act next month. Trump made the comment in an interview with CBS’ '60 Minutes' that’s set to air Sunday night. The president posted the full, unedited interview on Facebook on Thursday.... With [Amy] Barrett on the path to confirmation in the coming days, Trump is signaling that he’s confident that court’s expected swing to the right portends the demise of the health law. Trump says in the interview: 'I think it’ll end' and 'I hope that they’ll end it.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

** Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "While senior Trump administration officials said this week that Iran has been actively interfering in the presidential election, many intelligence officials said they remained far more concerned about Russia, which in recent days has hacked into state and local computer networks in breaches that could allow Moscow broader access to American voting infrastructure. The discovery of the hacks came as American intelligence agencies, infiltrating Russian networks themselves, have pieced together details of what they believe are Russia’s plans to interfere in the presidential race in its final days or immediately after the election on Nov. 3. Officials did not make clear what Russia planned to do, but they said its operations would be intended to help President Trump, potentially by exacerbating disputes around the results, especially if the race is too close to call.... Some U.S. intelligence officials view Russia’s intentions as more significant than the announcement Wednesday night by the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, that Iran has been involved in the spreading of faked, threatening emails...." ~~~

~~~ Wherein Trump Loyalist Mr. Rat Points Out Trump Is Trying to Undermine the Election. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: “The centerpiece of [DNI John] Ratcliffe’s announcement [Wednesday] was that Iran — and Russia, which was mysteriously downplayed — has obtained voter data enabling Iran to send emails to voters that were faked to seem like right-wing efforts to menace them into voting for Trump. Ratcliff[e] noted that this was 'designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage President Trump.' The idea is that these emails are supposed to associate Trump with right-wing efforts to intimidate voters.... But the other thing Ratcliffe said about Iran is ...: 'Iran is distributing other content to include a video that implies that individuals could cast fraudulent ballots, even from overseas. This video, and any claims about such allegedly fraudulent ballots, are not true.'... Who else has been making such claims about fraudulent ballots? Why, Trump has, of course. And so has ... William P. Barr ... and ... Donald Trump Jr.... The Post viewed the video: 'The video ... shows Trump making disparaging comments about mail-in voting, followed by a logo with the name of the Proud Boys....' So, to be as clear as possible, this video circulated by Iran, which Ratcliffe has denounced for spreading false information about voter fraud, features Trump himself making such claims.” Emphasis added. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)

Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "With less than two weeks before Election Day and Trump lagging in the polls, some of the president’s most prominent allies are going all in on QAnon.... At his NBC town hall last week, Trump refused to disavow QAnon, which the FBI considers a potential source of domestic terrorism. On Sunday, Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel sidestepped a question from ABC host George Stephanopoulos on whether she would denounce QAnon.... And nothing has proven to be more of a nexus for the GOP’s QAnon conspiracy-mongering than Hunter Biden’s supposed laptops.... Rudy Giuliani has recently begun claiming that the laptop contains images of lurid, illegal pictures of underage women.... The unverified claims about Biden’s laptop are a near-identical echo of an earlier conspiracy theory embraced by QAnon and Pizzagate supporters about former Rep. Anthony Weiner's (D-NY) laptop. In that story, Weiner's laptop featured a video of Hillary Clinton and aide Huma Abedin abusing children, in scenes so gruesome that NYPD officers who viewed it eventually killed themselves." ~~~

~~~ Ben Collins & Brandy Zadrozny of NBC News: "Some of the same people who pushed a false conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton that first emerged in 2016 are now targeting Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, with similar falsehoods. Their online posts are garnering astronomical numbers of shares on social media.... There is an important difference, however. The pizzagate-style rumors in 2016 were largely confined to far-right message boards like 4chan and parts of Reddit. But the Hunter Biden iteration of the same conspiracy theory took off last weekend with the help of speculation from conservative TV hosts and members of Congress. Their theorizing can be traced back to a new website [-- Revolver News --] that has been promoted by ... Donald Trump and his surrogates.... The child abuse conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden that emerged from the fringes of the internet began swirling before the New York Post article and can be traced to associates of former White House aide Steve Bannon." ~~~

~~~ ** Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer: “QAnon believers hunting for child kidnappers should start at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.... QAnon’s core followers believe there’s a Satanic cult among Democratic Party elites and Hollywood that’s protected by a 'deep state' cabal and which engages in rampant pedophilia (at minimum) and maybe rituals where small children are killed by monsters who then drink their blood.... NBC News almost [broke through the pre-election bombast] this week with its explosive report that advocates who’ve been scouring records, the internet, and even the backstreets of Central America have been unable to find the parents of 545 kids, many of them under age 6, who were wrenched away by federal agents during Trump’s crackdown at the southern border.... 'Let’s not mince words,' the Washington Post editorialized Thursday. 'The Trump administration kidnapped children.'... The real child-abusers are bland bureaucrats rendered into cowards by a system, a political machine that defends the narcissistic authoritarianism of its leader that QAnon fantasizes is protecting their white suburban kids even as real brown ones are traumatized.” Firewalled.

Washington Post: "At least 47.1 million have voted nationwide, and there are still 12 days until Election Day, surpassing the total number of early ballots cast in 2016." Includes a map & other graphics so you can check out how voting is going in your state.

New Jersey. Matt Friedman of Politico: “A federal judge on Thursday tossed the Trump campaign’s lawsuit against New Jersey’s primarily mail-in election, ruling that most of its arguments were speculative and that the campaign failed to show how it‘s being harmed. The lawsuit, filed in August by the Trump campaign as well as the Republican State Committee and Republican National Committee, was basically moot anyway. The plaintiffs did not seek an injunction to keep New Jersey from changing the way it was conducting its election. County clerks began mailing out ballots weeks ago and about 2 million have been cast so far. 'Plaintiffs have alleged nothing more than the possibility of future injury to their members,' U.S. District Court Judge Michael Shipp wrote in his ruling.”

Pennsylvania. Danny Hakim & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: “The Trump campaign has been videotaping Philadelphia voters while they deposit their ballots in drop boxes, leading Pennsylvania’s attorney general to warn this week that the campaign’s actions fall outside of permitted poll watching practices and could amount to illegal voter intimidation. The campaign made a formal complaint to city officials on Oct. 16, saying a campaign representative had surveilled voters depositing two or three ballots at drop boxes, instead of only their own. The campaign called the conduct 'blatant violations of the Pennsylvania election code,' according to a letter from a lawyer representing the Trump campaign that was reviewed by The New York Times. The campaign included photos of three voters who it claimed were dropping off multiple ballots.... But city officials rejected the assertion that the voters who had been photographed had necessarily done something improper.... Earlier this month, a Trump campaign official told The Times that the campaign would be videotaping drop boxes but was only interested in people who were dumping large numbers of ballots — not in those bringing an extra ballot or two. That assertion appears to have been false.”

Outer Space. Ruby Mellen of the Washington Post: "American [astronaut] Kate Rubins said she plans to cast her vote from the International Space Station in the upcoming presidential election. Some 250 miles below, many voters are struggling to do the same.... Since 1997, U.S. astronauts have been able to cast their votes from space, after John Blaha raised the issue with NASA ahead of the 1996 presidential election, during which he would be aboard the Russian Space Station Mir." Mrs. McC: The Trump campaign will probably challenge Rubins' ballot.

Senate Races. Alyssa Fowers of the Washington Post: "Hundred of thousands of donors rushed to back Democratic Senate campaigns after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, many spreading their donations across several candidates. Seven times as many people gave to Democratic candidates in competitive races the day after Ginsburg’s death than the day before, according to an analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission. Donations were often small, averaging $17.82 during the rush, compared with $55.08 two days before. The most common donation on the day after Ginsburg’s death was $1.92, suggesting that donors made a single contribution via the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue to split between candidates. Donors may have hoped that spreading the wealth across multiple candidates, rather than focusing on a single race, would help Democrats take control of the Senate, giving them the power to confirm or vote down future Supreme Court justices."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: “More than 75,000 cases of the coronavirus were announced in the United States on Thursday, the second-highest daily total nationwide since the pandemic began. Eight states set single-day case records, and 13 states have added more cases in the past week than in any other seven-day stretch. The bleak numbers came as President Trump declared at the final presidential debate on Thursday that, despite evidence, the virus was 'going away,' while his challenger, Joseph R. Biden Jr., warned of a 'dark winter' ahead that required aggressive federal action.” ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: NBC News puts the number of 78,000+ cases yesterday & the highest national daily total ever.

Giulia Nieto del Rio & Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "A hospital in Idaho is 99 percent full and warning that it may have to transfer coronavirus patients to hospitals in Seattle and Portland, Ore. Medical centers in Kansas City, Mo., turned away ambulances on a recent day because they had no room for more patients. And in West Allis, just outside Milwaukee, an emergency field hospital erected on the grounds of the Wisconsin State Fair admitted its first virus patient this week. More than 41,000 people are currently hospitalized with the coronavirus in the United States, a 40 percent rise in the past month, and cooler weather that pushes more people indoors is threatening to expand the outbreak still more. At least 14 states saw more people hospitalized for the virus on a day in the past week than on any other day in the pandemic, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Seven more states are nearing their peaks."

Blake Montgomery of the Daily Beast: “A new report from Columbia University on COVID-19 deaths estimates that hundreds of thousands of Americans died because the United States’ response to the pandemic was an 'abject failure,' particularly the actions of ... Donald Trump. With an adequate response, the United States could have avoided tens of thousands of deaths and an incalculable amount of suffering, the researchers said. Dr. Irwin Redlener, the lead author on the study and the founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, laid the blame at the feet of the White House in an interview with The Daily Beast: 'We believe that this was a monumental, lethal screwup by an administration that didn’t want to deal with reality.' In the report, titled '130,000–210,000 Avoidable COVID-19 Deaths — and Counting — in the U.S.', researchers at Columbia’s NCDP studied 'the staggering and disproportionate nature of COVID-19 fatalities in the United States.' The researchers compared the coronavirus response of the U.S. to that of six other countries— South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, Canada, and France — and found that the American government’s response to the pandemic rated unfavorably against them all.” The report is here.

Maggie Fox of CNN: "The US Food and Drug Administration approved remdesivir for the treatment of coronavirus infection, the drug's maker, Gilead Sciences, said Thursday. The drug, sold under the brand name Veklury, has been used under emergency use authorization. It is the first drug to be approved for treating Covid-19.... 'Veklury should only be administered in a hospital or in a healthcare setting capable of providing acute care comparable to inpatient hospital care,' [the company said in a statement.] Earlier this month, a World Health Organization-sponsored global study found remdesivir did not help patients survive or even recover faster, but a US study found the infused drug shortened recovery time for some patients by about a third."

Christopher Rugaber of the AP: "The number of laid-off Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 787,000, a sign that job losses may have eased slightly but are still running at historically high levels. Last week’s figure was down from 842,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The government also revised down the number of people who sought aid in the two weeks before that. The revised total for the week that ended Oct. 3 was 767,000, the fewest since the viral pandemic erupted in March, though still more than three times the levels that preceded the pandemic. Economists welcomed the declines as evidence that the job market is still recovering from the pandemic recession. But some cautioned that the improvement could prove short-lived." (Also linked yesterday.)

Donald Trump Doesn't Know How to Pick a Password. Adam Gabbatt of the Guardian: “Donald Trump’s Twitter account was allegedly hacked last week, after a Dutch researcher correctly guessed the president’s password: 'maga2020!', Dutch media reported. Victor Gevers, a security expert, had access to Trump’s direct messages, could post tweets in his name and change his profile, De Volkskrant newspaper reported. Gevers – who previously managed to log into Trump’s account in 2016 – apparently gained access by guessing Trump’s password. He tried 'maga2020!' on his fifth attempt and it worked.... Twitter, however, denied the report. However, Gevers told De Volkskrant the ease with which he accessed Trump’s account suggested the president was not using basic security measures like two-step verification.” Gevers said he warned the White House, CIA, FBI & Twitter of the easy hack. “A day later, Gevers noticed that two-step verification had been activated on Trump’s account.... Two days later, the Secret Service got in touch. According to De Volkskrant, they thanked him for bringing the security problem to their attention. [In 2016,] Trump’s password was 'yourefired.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Obviously, in choosing a password, you pick something you can remember but that would be so meaningless to others that couldn't just guess it. As for whether or the not the story is true, it's hard to say. When I change computers or locations, I get e-mail notifications from a few companies, like Google. I'm not sure if Twitter has sent me such notifications.

Eric Lipton of the New York Times: “President Trump signed an executive order this week that could substantially expand his ability to hire and fire tens of thousands of federal workers during a second term, potentially allowing him to weed out what he sees as a 'deep state' bureaucracy working to undermine him. The executive order, issued late Wednesday and described by one prominent federal union leader as 'the most profound undermining of the Civil Service in our lifetimes,' would allow federal agencies to go through their employee rosters and reclassify certain workers in a way that would strip them of job protections that now cover most federal employees.... Mr. Trump’s new executive order would create a new class of federal worker, known as 'Schedule F' employees, that would be made up of career staff members who are involved in 'confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating' work. This would most likely include the thousands of federal employees who write the regulations that translate federal laws into formal rules, as well as economists, scientists, lawyers and manager....”

Mike Schneider of the AP: "For the second time in two months, a panel of federal judges on Thursday blocked ... Donald Trump’s effort to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from being counted during the process of divvying up congressional seats by state. The decision from a panel of three district judges in California went further than last month’s ruling by a panel of three federal judges in New York by saying that Trump’s order in July not only was unlawful but also violated the constitution. The New York judges ignored the question of the order’s constitutionality and just said it was unlawful.... The Trump administration has appealed the New York decision to the Supreme Court, and the nation’s high court agreed to hear the case next month. Other challenges to Trump’s order are pending in Maryland, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia." (Also linked yesterday.)

Julian Borger of the Guardian: "US immigration officers allegedly tortured Cameroonian asylum seekers to force them to sign their own deportation orders, in what lawyers and activists describe as a brutal scramble to fly African migrants out of the country in the run-up to the elections. Many of the Cameroonian migrants in a Mississippi detention centre refused to sign, fearing death at the hands of Cameroonian government forces responsible for widespread civilian killings, and because they had asylum hearings pending. According to multiple accounts, detainees were threatened, choked, beaten, pepper-sprayed and threatened with more violence to make them sign.... Lawyers and human rights advocates said there had been a significant acceleration of deportations in recent weeks, a trend they see as linked to the looming elections and the possibility that Ice could soon be under new management." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to advance Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination after Democrats boycotted the vote. The panel voted 12-0 to send Barrett’s nomination to the full Senate, paving the way for President Trump’s nominee to be confirmed to the Supreme Court early next week. Every Republican on the panel supported her nomination and no Democratic senator voted. Every GOP senator was present for the vote, meeting the committee's rule that 12 members of the panel must be present to report a nomination to the full Senate. But the committee also requires two members of the minority party to be present in order to conduct business. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), however, made it clear that he would move forward regardless of the committee's rules. 'As you know, our Democratic colleagues informed the committee last night that they will not participate in the hearing. That was their choice. It will be my choice to vote the nominee out of committee. We're not going to allow them to take over the committee,' Graham said on Thursday." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to advance President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, with majority Republicans skirting the panel’s rules to recommend her confirmation as Democrats boycotted the session in protest." This is an update of a story linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.)

Adam Serwer of the Atlantic: Because "the Supreme Court is helping Republicans rig elections, adding more justices to the bench might be the only way to stop them." Thanks to Anonymous for the link. Anonymous says (yesterday's Comments) that Serwer's essay should be required reading for Joe Biden. But John Roberts should read it, too, because Serwer gets to the rancid meat of Roberts' judicial philosophy: "The chief justice may claim that only deliberate discrimination counts as racism, but in practice he rules even overt racism acceptable if sufficiently competent attorneys clean it up first. And Roberts is the most sympathetic conservative justice when it comes to voting rights." The essay is firewalled, but it's worth using up one of your few freebies.

Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "Goldman Sachs, one of Wall Street’s oldest and most prestigious banks, will pay $2.9 billion in penalties and fees to settle federal charges over its involvement in a Malaysian bribery scheme, the Justice Department announced Thursday. Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York charged the bank with conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids companies or individuals from paying foreign governments to retain business. The settlement includes the largest monetary penalty ever assessed under corporate criminal bribery law. The Justice Department alleged that Goldman Sachs ignored signs of fraud among some of its senior bankers in a scheme that ultimately led to a Malaysian government-backed economic development corporation being defrauded out of $2.7 billion. About $1.6 billion of the $2.7 billion was used to pay officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to secure work issuing and selling bonds in international markets."

Pilar Melendez & Seamus Hughes of the Daily Beast: “A 19-year-old who was busted with a car full of guns and explosives ... debated killing Joe Biden online, traveling to a Wendy’s mere miles from the former vice president’s home and penning a checklist that ended in 'execute,' federal authorities allege in court documents. Alexander Hillel Treisman, originally from Seattle, was indicted by a federal grand jury in September on a child pornography charge after authorities stumbled upon his abandoned van at a Third Bank in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Inside, officers with the Kannapolis Police Department found a trove of weapons, including an AR-15 style rifle behind the driver’s seat, a canister of Tannerite, an explosive material, and more than $500,000.... 'Should I kill joe biden?' Treisman allegedly wrote on April 15, 2020, alongside an image posted on iFunny, according to a search-warrant application. The application also details how the 19-year-old went to Wilmington, Delaware — Biden’s hometown — on at least one occasion and discussed his need to 'save' Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.”

Way Beyond the Beltway

Russia, Etc. Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing in late October. The delayed annual freeze in the Laptev Sea has been caused by freakishly protracted warmth in northern Russia and the intrusion of Atlantic waters, say climate scientists who warn of possible knock-on effects across the polar region.... The downward trend is likely to continue until the Arctic has its first ice-free summer, said Meier. The data and models suggest this will occur between 2030 and 2050." --s (Also linked yesterday.)