Last Call For Like A Kansas Trumpnado

How do I know the Trump regime is now expecting to lose? 

Kansas is now in play according to the NY Times. Kansas.

 

President Trump, who won Kansas by more than 20 percentage points four years ago, maintains only a single-digit lead in the state, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Thursday, an erosion of support that typifies his struggles in nearly every corner of the country as he fights for a second term.

With the clock ticking down before Election Day, the president leads Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, by seven percentage points, 48 to 41, among likely voters in a traditionally conservative state.

The abandonment of Mr. Trump by some voters whom Republicans could once rely on unfailingly has filtered down to the state’s Senate race, where the Democratic nominee, Barbara Bollier, trails the Republican, Roger Marshall, by just four percentage points, 46 to 42.

Kansas has voted for the Republican presidential nominee in the last 12 elections and is home to the party’s 1996 nominee, Bob Dole (who is now 97 years old). It is unlikely to stray this year. But the fact that the contest is so close in the state may presage a brutal self-examination for Republicans if Mr. Trump becomes the first president to lose re-election in a quarter-century.

Barely more than half of Kansans, 51 percent, approve of the job Mr. Trump is doing. Forty-five percent disapprove.

“I don’t know anything about Joe Biden, and everything I know about Trump, I dislike, so you can say I’m voting for Biden because I can’t stand Donald Trump,” said Richard Loveall, 77, a retired computer programmer who cast his ballot for Mr. Trump four years ago because he didn’t like the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

His views of the president today are searing. “He has no integrity,” Mr. Loveall said. “He cheats all the time. He never does anything he said he’s going to do. He’s not a man who honors his word.”

 

I will say this one last time for the folks in the back of the room:

 

Kansas is legitimately in play for the Democrats, for both Biden and for the US Senate with Dr. Barbara Bollier. 

It was legitimately in play 2 years ago, and Democrat Laura Kelly is now Governor as a result.

I'm starting to allow myself to believe Biden's going to win this.

But we need you down the stretch to vote.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

 Me, Wednesday night on news of Russian and Iranian election interference:

Keep a weather eye out for the rest of this story. It involves Russia and the Proud Boys, I'm sure of it.

 

 The NY Times, Thursday night:

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 has in recent days 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.

There is no evidence that the Russians have changed any vote tallies or voter registration information, officials said. They added that the Russian-backed hackers had penetrated the computer networks without taking further action, as they did in 2016. But American officials expect that if the presidential race is not called on election night, Russian groups could use their knowledge of local computer systems to deface websites, release nonpublic information or take similar steps that could sow chaos and doubts about the integrity of the results, according to American officials briefed on the intelligence.

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, which were made to appear as if they came from the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group.

Officials briefed on the intelligence said that Mr. Ratcliffe had accurately summarized the preliminary conclusion about Iran. But Tehran’s hackers may have accomplished that mission simply by assembling public information and then routing the threatening emails through Saudi Arabia, Estonia and other countries to hide their tracks. One official compared the Iranian action to single-A baseball, while the Russians are major leaguers.

Nonetheless, both the Iranian and the Russian activity could pave the way for “perception hacks,” which are intended to leave the impression that foreign powers have greater access to the voting system than they really do. Federal officials have warned for months that small breaches could be exaggerated to prompt inaccurate charges of widespread voter fraud.

Officials say Russia’s ability to change vote tallies nationwide is limited.

And it's Columbo time again.

Just one more thing...

Senate Republicans, in particular Mitch McConnell, have been personally blocking legislation that would strengthen election cyber-defenses for years now. Note that Russia is using the same style of exploits and attacks made in 2016, because states have not been able to close those breaches.

Republicans scream about "election integrity" and want as many hoops as possible put in place making it more difficult to vote, measures that actually don't increase security, they just create long lines in Democratic districts for voting, and yet when it comes to actual threats to election integrity, Republicans do everything they can to block the attempts, and offer none of their own solutions saying they are unneeded because our voting system is fine.

You be the judge.

And you will, by voting the GOP out.

It's About Suppression, Con't

The Trump regime is quite serious about doing something about voter intimidation at the polls in battleground states like Florida, and by "doing something" I mean denying Trump's public calls towards intimidating voters at polling places with armed fascist brownshirts.

A Trump campaign spokesperson says two men dressed as armed security guards who set up in a tent outside an early voting location in downtown St. Petersburg were not hired by the campaign.

Thea McDonald, Deputy National Press Secretary for the Trump campaign, told 8 On Your Side: “The Campaign did not hire these individuals nor did the Campaign direct them to go to the voting location.”

Julie Marcus, Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections, told 8 On Your Side the men set up a tent outside an early voting site on Wednesday and claimed to be with the Trump campaign.

“The Sheriff [Bob Gualtieri] told me the persons that were dressed in these security uniforms had indicated to sheriff’s deputies that they belonged to a licensed security company and they indicated—and this has not been confirmed yet—that they were hired by the Trump campaign,” said Marcus in a video interview with 8 On Your Side’s Chip Osowski Wednesday night.

Marcus, a Republican, is running to keep her seat as supervisor after being appointed in May of this year by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Gualtieri, also a Republican, is running for re-election as well.

“The sheriff and I take this very seriously,” Marcus said. “Voter intimidation, deterring voters from voting, impeding a voter’s ability to cast a ballot in this election is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in any way shape, or form. So we anticipated many things going into this election. Not only cybersecurity, but physical security and we had a plan in place and executed that plan.”

In the first presidential debate last month, President Trump encouraged his supporters to go to the polls to watch what happens there.

“I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully,” Trump said. “Because that’s what has to happen. I am urging them to do it.”

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri spoke with News Channel 8 on Tuesday about his plans to thwart any potential voter intimidation. He said he’s been working closely with Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Julie Marcus to make polling places safe.

“I just don’t want to get too deep into the specifics because we’re trying to balance it,” Gualtieri told 8 On Your Side political reporter Evan Donovan. “But I’ll say it’s a combination of uniformed personnel who will be in the area and also we’re gonna use some undercover personnel just to monitor the situation.”

Dustin Chase, deputy supervisor of elections in Pinellas County, told 8 On Your Side the men setup outside the Supervisor of Elections Office in the County Building, which is located at 501 First Ave. North.

Marcus told 8 On Your Side that Gualtieri plans to have a deputy presence specifically outside that polling place on Thursday.

Deputies with Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office came to the polling place on Wednesday and spoke to the guards, who said they were hired by the Trump campaign and said they would be out tomorrow at the early voting location.

Again, the Roberts Court has all but made this perfectly legal, first by dismantling the Voting Rights Act, and then by lifting the GOP consent decree on voter intimidation tactics exactly like this.

This is working as intended, folks.

This is why I'm still not even close to being comfortable with a ten point Biden national lead, when a dozen battleground states that will determine the winner are all within five or six points. It doesn't take much in the voter suppression category for Trump to eke out a win.

Literally, they did this all before four years ago and he won because of it.

StupidiNews!

• Hospitals nationwide are starting to fill up as a fall surge in COVID-19 cases in the US has left 1,100 dead in Thursday, with almost 1.2 million new COVID-19 cases in October so far.
• The BBC announced this week that journalist Martin Bashir is "seriously unwell" due to COVID-19, Bashir remains in a British hospital.
• Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee moved Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Senate floor for an expected Monday vote, Democrats boycotted the vote as illegitimate.
• The Trump regime has released footage of Trump's 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl ahead of time, Trump apparently said that he wanted the Supreme Court to kill Obamacare.
• Both the White House and Twitter are denying the claim of a Dutch researcher that he was able to access Donald Trump's official Twitter account by guessing the password as "maga2020!".
  

Last Call For Google This

Bill Barr and the Trump Regime, and Red State AGs are coming for Google's head as the war for the future of Silicon Valley now enters the endgame.

The Justice Department on Tuesday sued Google for abusing its dominance in online search and advertising — the government’s most significant attempt to protect competition since its groundbreaking case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago.

And it could just be an opening salvo. Other major tech companies including Apple, Amazon and Facebook are under investigation at both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.

“Google is the gateway to the internet and a search advertising behemoth,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen told reporters. “It has maintained its monopoly power through exclusionary practices that are harmful to competition.”

Lawmakers and consumer advocates have long accused Google of abusing its dominance in online search and advertising. The case filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges that Google uses billions of dollars collected from advertisers to pay phone manufacturers to ensure Google is the default search engine on browsers. That stifles competition and innovation from smaller upstart rivals to Google and harms consumers by reducing the quality of search and limiting privacy protections and alternative search options, the government alleges.

Critics contend that multibillion-dollar fines and mandated changes in Google’s practices imposed by European regulators in recent years weren’t severe enough and Google needs to be broken up to change its conduct. The Justice Department didn’t lay out specific remedies along those lines, although it asked the court to order structural relief “as needed to remedy any anticompetitive harm.”

That opens the door to possible fundamental changes such as a spinoff of the company’s Chrome browser.

Google vowed to defend itself and responded immediately via tweet: “Today’s lawsuit by the Department of Justice is deeply flawed. People use Google because they choose to -- not because they’re forced to or because they can’t find alternatives.”

 

And while Democratic (and some Republican!) AGs still want Google broken up, they are still looking into how they are going to handle the cases.

Eleven states, all with Republican attorneys general, joined the federal government in the lawsuit. But several other states demurred.

The attorneys general of New York, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Utah released a statement Monday saying they have not concluded their investigation into Google and would want to consolidate their case with the DOJ’s if they decided to file. “It’s a bipartisan statement,” said spokesman Fabien Levy of the New York State attorney general’s office. “There’s things that still need to be fleshed out, basically”

President Donald Trump’s administration has long had Google in its sights. One of Trump’s top economic advisers said two years ago that the White House was considering whether Google searches should be subject to government regulation. Trump has often criticized Google, recycling unfounded claims by conservatives that the search giant is biased against conservatives and suppresses their viewpoints.

Rosen told reporters that allegations of anti-conservative bias are “a totally separate set of concerns” from the issue of competition.

Sally Hubbard, an antitrust expert who runs enforcement strategy at the Open Markets Institute, said it was a welcome surprise to see the Justice Department’s openness to the possibility of structurally breaking up Google, and not just imposing conditions on its behavior as has happened in Europe.

“Traditionally, Republicans are hesitant to speak of breakups,” she said. “Personally, I’ll be very disappointed if I see a settlement. Google has shown it won’t adhere to any behavioral conditions.”

The argument for reining in Google has gathered force as the company stretched far beyond its 1998 roots as a search engine governed by the motto “Don’t Be Evil.” It’s since grown into a diversified goliath with online tentacles that scoop up personal data from billions of people via services ranging from search, video and maps to smartphone software. That data helps feed the advertising machine that has turned Google into a behemoth.

Let's get this out of the way: I believe Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple should absolutely be broken up. A trillion-dollar company is a monstrous altar to Mammon that should be torn down and destroyed. No company should ever be allowed to become that large. I've said this before.

And having said that time and again, I also must reiterate that the Trump regime is attacking Google here for the wrong reasons. They are going after Google because it is a threat to Republican power as well as Democratic, and that's the only reason why.

I want to see these companies fractured like panes of glass falling on an empty parking lot. There is nothing more hideous to me than a company worth thirteen digits in dollars, a company whose very worth could easily feed and house America for a year and still have twelve digits left over.

But it has to be done right.

The War On Drugs "Captures" A Coporate General

The Justice Department has collared OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma with a plea deal that will pay the government $225 million and put the company through bankruptcy.

 

Purdue Pharma LP has reached an agreement to plead guilty to criminal charges over handling of its addictive prescription opioid OxyContin, in a deal with U.S. prosecutors that effectively sidesteps paying billions of dollars in penalties and stops short of criminally charging its executives or wealthy Sackler family owners, people familiar with the matter said.

In a far-reaching agreement set to be unveiled on Wednesday, Purdue has formally admitted to criminal conduct related to distribution of its painkillers and agreed to pay $225 million to resolve U.S. Justice Department investigations.

Prosecutors are preparing to impose significant penalties exceeding $8 billion against Purdue, though the lion’s share will go largely unpaid, the people said.

Purdue has agreed to pay $225 million toward a $2 billion criminal forfeiture, with the Justice Department foregoing the rest so long as the company completes a bankruptcy reorganization transforming itself into a “public benefit company” or similar entity that steers the unpaid portion to thousands of U.S. communities suing it over the opioid crisis.

A $3.54 billion criminal fine and $2.8 billion civil penalty are likely to receive cents on the dollar as they compete with trillions of dollars of other claims from those communities and other creditors in Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings, the people said.

Members of the billionaire Sackler family who own Purdue have agreed to pay a separate $225 million civil penalty for allegedly causing false claims related to the company’s opioids to be made to government healthcare programs such as Medicare, the people said.

Neither the Sacklers nor any Purdue executives are expected to be criminally charged. The agreement does not release any individuals associated with Purdue from potential criminal liability. A separate Justice Department criminal investigation scrutinizing individuals remains ongoing, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Purdue conspired to engage in criminal conduct over the years that kept medically questionable prescriptions of its opioids flowing, prosecutors are expected to allege. The Stamford, Connecticut-based company has agreed to plead guilty to three felonies, two of them violations of a federal anti-kickback law and another charge under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the people said.

 

At the press conference yesterday we got more details, including, what do you know, federal criminal charges!

Drugmaker Purdue Pharma, the company behind the powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin that experts say helped touch off an opioid epidemic, will plead guilty to federal criminal charges as part of a settlement of more than $8 billion, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

The deal does not release any of the company’s executives or owners — members of the wealthy Sackler family — from criminal liability, and a criminal investigation is ongoing. Family members said they acted “ethically and lawfully,” but some state attorneys general said the agreement fails to hold the Sacklers accountable.

The company will plead guilty to three counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and violating federal anti-kickback laws, the officials said, and the agreement will be detailed in a bankruptcy court filing in federal court.

We'll see what happens, but this isn't even close to justice.

Remember that when Trump crows about how he "fixed" the opioid crisis.

The State of the Senate, Con't

Sabato's Crystal Ball Senate team, Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman, are moving Iowa's Senate race between GOP incumbent Joni Ernst and Democratic challenger Teresa Greenfield to Leans D from Toss-up, meaning that the Dems are now favored to take control of the upper chamber. 

In Iowa, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) is looking increasingly like an underdog against her Democratic challenger, Theresa Greenfield. At the presidential level, Iowa is looking like a true toss-up, and Greenfield seems to be running at least even with — and often better than — Joe Biden in the state.

For political junkies, perhaps one of the most anti-climactic features of the 2016 election was that, across the 34 states that saw contests, the senatorial results lined up perfectly with the presidential picture. That year, no Donald Trump-won states sent a Democrat to the Senate, or vice versa. But Iowans may be in a more split-ticket mood now — or, they may even deliver the Democrats a sweep in the topline races.

As of Monday, Greenfield’s average lead in the RealClearPolitics average was 4.8%, while Biden was up by a more meager 1.2%. Perhaps tellingly, most of that difference comes from Ernst underperforming Trump — her average polling share stands at 42.5%, compared to Trump’s 46.3%. So it makes sense that, despite his sagging national fortunes, Ernst generally is still trying to frame herself as a firm ally of the president.

For Senate Democrats, last quarter’s fundraising numbers were truly historic. For the period spanning from the start of July to the end of September, Democrats in key Senate contests across the country raised a combined $265 million. In Iowa, Greenfield set a state fundraising record — her $29 million quarterly haul was roughly four times what Ernst raised. Candidate fundraising isn’t everything — outside groups are also spending heavily in the state, and Senate candidates in past cycles have lost to lesser-funded opponents — but going into the final stretch of the campaign, Greenfield seems to have the momentum.

In 2014, Ernst had the luxury of running against a gaffe-prone candidate in then-Rep. Bruce Braley (D, IA-1). Though Braley was initially seen as a strong recruit, he fumbled early in the campaign when he was caught on tape speaking derisively about the state’s other senator, Chuck Grassley, at a fundraiser. If Republicans took the Senate majority that year, Grassley was in line to chair the Judiciary Committee — Braley dismissed the veteran senator as a “farmer from Iowa” who didn’t go to law school. Fairly or not, Braley’s campaign never really recovered from that episode, and 2014 ended up being a disastrously bad year for Democrats across the country.

In last week’s debate, Ernst had something of a Braley-esque gaffe herself. Though her down-to-home image plays prominently into her campaign, she didn’t know the break-even price of soybeans, an important cash crop for the state. Greenfield, by contrast, nailed the price of corn when asked. Senate debates across the country have taken on increasingly national tones, but we’d expect Democrats to use Ernst’s debate answer on such a local issue to cast her as out of touch with the state.

The soybeans gaffe seems symptomatic of Ernst’s reelection effort: in 2014, playing up her rural persona and vowing to “make ‘em squeal,” she rode her motorcycle onto the national scene as a political outsider. After a term in the Senate, and running in a totally different environment, Ernst’s campaign seems to have lost some of that 2014 zeal. Though Iowa hasn’t ousted an incumbent senator since 1984, we see Greenfield with the upper hand. The race is moving from Toss-up to Leans Democratic.

Moving Iowa to the Leans Democratic category before North Carolina wasn’t something we’d have expected for much of this year. In April, the Crystal Ball identified a quartet of Senate races that we identified as the Democrats’ “Core Four” states to flip. Back then, it seemed that Democrats’ most feasible path to a bare 50-seat-plus-VP Senate majority ran through Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina — in fact, at the time, we cited Montana as the Democrats’ next best pick-up prospect. We now see Democrats as at least modest favorites in those first three states, while Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) seems to have a slight edge over his challenger, Gov. Steve Bullock (D-MT), in Big Sky Country.

But that's still only a net gain of three seats, and while that would put Kamala Harris as a tie-breaker, the Dems need one more seat, and that mens Cal Cunningham prevailing in NC.

With today’s update, North Carolina is the only Toss-up race left on our senatorial board. Since news broke of his extramarital activities a few weeks ago, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D-NC) continues to lead first-term Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). In some surveys that have been conducted since the scandal broke, Cunningham has, perhaps counterintuitively (or maybe completely expectedly?), expanded his lead in some polls — although both his overall share of the vote and his lead over Tillis in polls are a little smaller than before the scandal broke, according to the RealClearPolitics average.

As we discussed recently, amidst all the dizzying news cycles of the Trump era, Cunningham’s affair may seem outright vanilla, and voters may not end up caring. But Republicans are adamant that the affair has, at minimum, hurt Cunningham’s image. Perhaps the key factor is whether the scandal remains in the headlines and what new developments emerge. Over the weekend, the joint editorial boards of the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News and Observer issued an unusual dis-dorsement in the race, noting that they would have endorsed Cunningham, but because of the scandal and how he has handled it, they declined to back either candidate. Given the uncertainty there, plus the state’s purple hue, we’re hesitant to write off Tillis.

 

Still a toss-up in my old home, and there's always Steve Bullock in Montana. 

Vote!

StupidiNews!

• The former CEO of Blue Bell ice cream is facing wire fraud and conspiracy charges in Texas over an alleged cover-up of the company 2015 listeria outbreak in its products.
• The FBI has arrested a Maryland man over a plot to kidnap, torture, and murder Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris on national TV.
• Taiwan's Defense Minister says it is not seeking a "new arms race" with China after the Trump regime sold the island nearly $2 billion in missiles and artillery.
• The death toll from a deadly military crackdown by Nigeria's government has now reached 56 as Amnesty International is warning the world that more deaths will follow.
• NASA successfully landed the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on tiny asteroid Bennu, touching the surface for six seconds, collecting samples, and leaving safely in one swift maneuver.
  

Last Call For Russian To Judgment, Con't

The FBI threw together a hasty press conference tonight to announce that both Iran and Russia have US voter registration information in hand, and that they are using it to run disinformation operations against US voters. Iran in particular was running an operation where Democratic voters in states like Florida and Alaska received emails from a group purporting to be white supremacist terrorist group Proud Boys, stating that if they did not vote for Trump, that the group would "come after" them.

The U.S. government has concluded that Iran is behind a series of threatening emails arriving this week in the inboxes of Democratic voters, according to two U.S. officials.

Department of Homeland Security officials told state and local election administrators on a call Wednesday that a foreign government was responsible for the online barrage, according to the U.S. officials and state and local authorities who participated in the call, all speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. A DHS officials also said they had detected holes in state and local election websites and instructed those participating to patch their online services.

The emails claimed to be from the Proud Boys, a far-right group supportive of President Trump, but appeared instead to be a deceptive campaign making use of a vulnerability in the organization’s online network.

First identified on Tuesday by local law enforcement and elections officials in Florida and Alaska, the emails were soon turned over to federal authorities, according to U.S. officials.

The messages appeared to target Democrats using data from digital databases known as “voter files,” some of which are commercially available. They told recipients the Proud Boys were “in possession of all your information” and instructed voters to change their party registration and cast their ballots for Trump.

By suggesting the group had gained access to privileged data, and also possibly penetrated electronic systems to detect how people were voting, the emails seemed designed to create the appearance of an election breach, said cybersecurity researchers. Such a move may serve to undermine confidence in the integrity of the democratic process without posing a genuine risk to the election, these researchers said.

“You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you,” warned the emails, which by Tuesday night were said to have reached voters in as many as four states, three of them hotly contested swing states in the coming presidential election.

The domain enlisted for the misleading operation, officialproudboys.com, was recently dropped by a hosting company that uses Google Cloud services, according to Google Cloud spokesman Ted Ladd. Without a secure host, the domain stood vulnerable to exploitation, cybersecurity experts said. Voters using Comcast, Yahoo and Gmail accounts were affected.

In addition to reports from Florida and Alaska, a voter in Pennsylvania told The Washington Post she had received one such email, though she suspected it may have been linked to her previous registration in Alaska. The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office had not received reports about the messages, a spokesman, Mark Shade, said Wednesday.

In the worlds of the great Peter Falk as Detective Columbo, "Just one more thing..."

And that thing is this: acting Director of National Intelligence John Ratliffe actually spent the press conference seemingly trying to both clear the "good name" of the Proud Boys and to pin the email attacks on Iran as targeting Trump, when Democratic voters were the ones targeted.

That seems wildly fishy to me. FBI Director Chris Wray followed up at the press conference with news that Russia also was running operations to "influence public opinion" as he put it. Now, Russia would greatly benefit from, say, hacking the Proud Boys domain and sending out these emails to 1) hurt Democrats and 2) allow the Trump regime to pin the blame on Iran.

I don't trust either Ratliffe or Wray. Ratliffe is a known liar, and Wray, in case we've all forgotten, was Chris Christie's lawyer on BridgeGate.

No, this all reeks to high heaven. Keep a weather eye out for the rest of this story. It involves Russia and the Proud Boys, I'm sure of it.

As for Wray himself, well, there are bigger problems.

President Trump and his advisers have repeatedly discussed whether to fire FBI Director Christopher Wray after Election Day — a scenario that also could imperil the tenure of Attorney General William Barr as the president grows increasingly frustrated that federal law enforcement has not delivered his campaign the kind of last-minute boost that the FBI provided in 2016.

The conversations among the president and senior aides stem in part from their disappointment that Wray in particular but Barr as well have not done what Trump had hoped — indicate that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, or other Biden associates are under investigation.

  

Wray won't pull a Comey, Barr was completely AWOL from this conference, and he's vanished for weeks actually, ever since Trump contracted COVID-19 earlier this month. The next two weeks could be as fateful in American history as they come.

Lowering The Barr, Con't

With the very real prospect of losing the election in two weeks weighing down his (Heart? Mind? Soul? Trump has none of these actually) prospects for remaining a free man, a furious Donald Trump turns to Bill Barr to engineer a special counsel investigation into Joe Biden before the election, something that even Barr is refusing to do at this point.

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

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

“We’ve got to get the attorney general to act,” Trump said in an interview on “Fox & Friends.” “He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast. He’s got to appoint somebody. This is major corruption, and this has to be known about before the election.”

Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University, suggested that Trump’s pressure campaign on Barr has moved into uncharted territory for presidential politics.

“The question is, Does Barr erode the guidelines and reforms from the post-Watergate era and move forward with this?” Zelizer said. “We are seeing a total politicization of the justice system in the final stages of an election.”

Trump’s pressuring of Barr comes as national and battleground polls show him facing an increasingly narrow path to reelection. The president has repeatedly cited Hunter Biden’s past —often with unsubstantiated claims — as a reason that voters can’t trust Biden in the White House.

The president has been promoting an unconfirmed New York Post report published last week that cites an email in which an official from Ukrainian gas company Burisma thanked Hunter Biden, who served on the company’s board, for arranging for him to meet Joe Biden during a 2015 visit to Washington. The Biden campaign has rejected Trump’s assertion of wrongdoing and noted that Biden’s schedule did not show a meeting with the Burisma official.

Trump has yet to specify what crime he believes the Bidens have committed, but that has not stopped him from going as far as suggesting to voters that Biden belongs in jail.

The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment on the president’s call for an investigation.

 

We're still operating under the assumption that Trump won't have Biden arrested before the election, or after the election. We're under the assumption Trump will go quietly, without triggering nationwide violence from his cult. We're under the assumption that the election, in fact, will still even happen.

 

In 2020, these are assumptions and nothing more. 

They always have been.

They could be wrong.

The Most Taxing Of Explanations, Con't

Good morning.

 

Donald Trump is hiding a secret foreign bank account in China. 

President Trump and his allies have tried to paint the Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as soft on China, in part by pointing to his son’s business dealings there.

Senate Republicans produced a report asserting, among other things, that Mr. Biden’s son Hunter “opened a bank account” with a Chinese businessman, part of what it said were his numerous connections to “foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe.”

But Mr. Trump’s own business history is filled with overseas financial deals, and some have involved the Chinese state. He spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company.

And it turns out that China is one of only three foreign nations — the others are Britain and Ireland — where Mr. Trump maintains a bank account, according to an analysis of the president’s tax records, which were obtained by The New York Times. The foreign accounts do not show up on Mr. Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he must list personal assets, because they are held under corporate names. The identities of the financial institutions are not clear.

The Chinese account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management L.L.C., which the tax records show paid $188,561 in taxes in China while pursuing licensing deals there from 2013 to 2015.

The tax records do not include details on how much money may have passed through the overseas accounts, though the Internal Revenue Service does require filers to report the portion of their income derived from other countries. The British and Irish accounts are held by companies that operate Mr. Trump’s golf courses in Scotland and Ireland, which regularly report millions of dollars in revenue from those countries. Trump International Hotels Management reported just a few thousand dollars from China.

In response to questions from The Times, Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said the company had “opened an account with a Chinese bank having offices in the United States in order to pay the local taxes” associated with efforts to do business there. He said the company had opened the account after establishing an office in China “to explore the potential for hotel deals in Asia.”

“No deals, transactions or other business activities ever materialized and, since 2015, the office has remained inactive,” Mr. Garten said. “Though the bank account remains open, it has never been used for any other purpose.”

Mr. Garten would not identify the bank in China where the account is held. Until last year, China’s biggest state-controlled bank rented three floors in Trump Tower, a lucrative lease that drew accusations of a conflict of interest for the president. 

 

Sure. No reason to believe that a man with a long history of Russian, Middle East, and European money laundering isn't also in bed with the Chinese government in order to spread the Trump brand name around in exchange for favors.

The account is associated with a front company for Chinese military intelligence. Trump has taken tens of millions of dollars out of the account despite the front company not actually doing much of anything. In other words, it's a patently obvious money laundering slush fund where the Chinese government pays Trump off.

Keep in mind also that the Trump regime has been attacking Joe Biden on China for a year now. It's because Trump is doing secret business with China, so of course he thinks Biden is too, because that's how this game works with Trump. Everyone is as corrupt as Trump is. This of course explains why Trump has been attacking Biden on China for months and months.

The most corrupt politician in American history, full stop.

StupidiNews!

• Archaeologists in Oklahoma have found human remains at the cemetery where experts are looking for victims of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.
• The CDC reports that deaths in 2020 are 285,000 more than in a regular year due to COVID-19, suggesting that the actual death toll from the virus in the US may be much higher than reported.
• The fiancee of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, killed in Saudi Arabia purportedly at the order of the Saudi Crown Prince, is suing the prince's US holdings in court.
• China is defending giving an experimental COVID-19 vaccine to thousands of Chinese citizens, saying it is necessary to help those "most in need".
• Democrats are blasting FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's plan to "revise Section 230" of the Communications Decency Act, saying it could force Twitter and other social media to shut down.
  

Last Call For USA Today, All The Way

Four years after USA Today endorsed voting against Trump, and third parties got enough of the anti-Trump vote for him to win the Electoral College, the national newspaper finally gets around to doing the actual right thing and endorsing Joe Biden. 

Four years ago, the Editorial Board — an ideologically and demographically diverse group of journalists that is separate from the news staff and operates by consensus — broke with tradition and took sides in the presidential race for the first time since USA TODAY was founded in 1982. We urged readers not to vote for Donald Trump, calling the Republican nominee unfit for office because he lacked the “temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents.” We stopped short, however, of an outright endorsement of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. This year, the Editorial Board unanimously supports the election of Joe Biden, who offers a shaken nation a harbor of calm and competence.

Recent polls show that more than 90% of voters have decided between Biden and Trump, and nothing at this point will change their minds. This editorial is for those of you who are still uncertain about which candidate to vote for, or whether to vote at all. It’s also for those who settled on Trump but might be having last-minute doubts.

Maybe you backed Trump the last time around because you hoped he’d shake things up in Washington or bring back blue-collar jobs. Maybe you liked his populist, anti-elitist message. Maybe you couldn’t stomach the idea of supporting a Democrat as polarizing as Clinton. Maybe you cast a ballot for a minor party candidate, or just stayed home.

Now, two weeks until Election Day, we suggest you consider a variation of the question Republican Ronald Reagan asked voters when he ran for president in 1980: Is America better off now than it was four years ago?

Beset by disease, economic suffering, a racial reckoning and natural disasters fueled by a changing climate, the nation is dangerously off course. We spoke to dozens of people in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, battleground states that helped propel Trump into the White House in 2016. Many declined to comment, citing a general disgust with the election or fear of speaking out publicly. While some said they were personally better off, most of those willing to talk on camera expressed anguish and dismay about the nation's direction

I am definitely not better off today than I was four years ago. I think America in general is much worse off today now that Donald Trump has unhooked us from so many of our traditions and our safeguards. … He is trying to tear down the Affordable Care Act, which is criminal.

Anita Giltner of Holland, Michigan

The way (Trump) has handled (COVID-19) so far has just been gross mismanagement. … Trump has repealed a bunch of environmental restrictions, which is really important to me because my age group and my demographic are the ones that are going to inherit the Earth.

Daniel Viar, of Rochester Hills, Michigan, who didn’t vote in 2016

It's getting worse. … There’s not a lot of food around, there’s not a lot of money around, people are getting evicted. … I just wish the United States could pull together. … Why do we got to fight against each other? It’s too much.

Lucinda Young of Toledo, Ohio

You have a president who is … mocking people, attacking people on Twitter. … We’re dealing with diversity and racism right now in our country, and we need a new leader who stands up and faces these challenges, like Joe Biden. ... I think it’s time for a change.

Mecca Vaughn of Milwaukee 

 

It doesn't look good for Trump any way you slice it, and with two weeks to go, the final push to unseat him is on.

 

Mitch Better Have My Money, Con't

Mitch McConnell now believes he has the votes for another doomed Senate GOP Covid-19 package that prioritizes only what Republicans want: more money for businesses and COVID-19 liability shields, and he's expecting our broken media to give him a last-minute win that saves his Senate control.

 

The Senate will hold two votes next week on a Payroll Protection Program bill and $500 billion coronavirus relief package, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Saturday.

Why it matters: Hopes for a broader stimulus deal before November's election are fading as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary remain deadlocked in negotiations on a potential package that McConnell has said his caucus has no appetite for. 

President Trump said last week he would "absolutely" go higher than a $1.8 trillion offer, and that he has directed Mnuchin to do so. But McConnell said he would not put such a deal on the floor, saying on Thursday, "My members think half a trillion dollars, highly targeted is the best way to go." 

Pelosi said Friday that she and Mnuchin would likely continue negotiations over the weekend, per Reuters. The House passed Democrats' revised $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill earlier this month.

Details: The Senate will first vote on Tuesday on the PPP measure, before voting Wednesday on a $500 billion stimulus bill that is nearly identical to the one that Democrats blocked in Sept. The stimulus package includes additional unemployment benefits, more than $100 billion for schools, and additional funding for testing, contact tracing and Operation Warp Speed.

What he's saying: "Working families have spent months waiting for Speaker Pelosi’s Marie Antoinette act to stop. They should not have to wait any longer," McConnell said in a statement Saturday.

 

This kabuki act failed last month, so I don't see why McConnell thinks Pelosi will take all the blame now, but that's what our broken media is for, I guess. 

The reality is that McConnell only cares about liability protections for corporations from COVID-19, and once he gets that, there won't be a dime coming for anything else heading into a Biden administration. McConnell will gleefully let the country rot in a depression if he maintains control of the Senate, and there won't be enough Democratic votes to change the filibuster rules even if the Democrats do win the Senate back.

The message is only Mitch McConnell matters.

NEW: @senatemajldr McConnell told his members in a closed door lunch that he told the White House not to agree to a COVID deal with Speaker Pelosi ahead of the election, according to three sources familiar

W/ @JulieNBCNews

1st reported by @ericawerner and @JStein_WaPo

— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) October 20, 2020

I wish voters here in Kentucky would put an end to his career, but they never will.

 

Vote Like Your Job Depends On It (Because It Does)

A Florida company is under fire for including a letter in their recent pay stubs to employees stating that if Biden wins, plant layoffs may have to begin immediately.

Some employees at a Florida manufacturing company feel they were threatened with being laid off if they did not support President Donald Trump.

Daniels Manufacturing Corporation is based in Orlando. Its office displays a large Trump flag on the flag pole outside the building.

According to campaign finance reports obtained by WESH, the company and its president George Daniels has contributed more than $600,000 in this election cycle to President Donald Trump and groups supporting other Republican candidates for office.

While there's nothing inherently wrong with companies supporting political parties or candidates, some employees think what Daniels Manufacturing Corporation did in a recent paystub went too far.

Their paystubs included a letter from Daniels himself warning them that their jobs could be in danger.

"If Trump and the Republicans win the election, DMC will hopefully be able to continue operating, more or less as it has been operating lately," the letter read. "However, if Biden and the Democrats win, DMC could be forced to begin permanent layoffs in late 2020 and/or early 2021."

Stan Smith is a DMC employee, but after getting that letter, he said he's planning to quit.

"Everybody has a choice to make their own decision," Smith said.

Some workers told WESH they were too afraid to speak about the incident for fear they would lose their jobs. Still, others said they supported the president and didn't find the letter offensive or threatening.

"I don't feel like it was correct, to do something like that," Smith said. "That's like me coming to work--because we had all these black killings--and I should come in here and I should wear a Black Lives Matter shirt and bring out hats and pass them out to everyone. I felt like it was unfair."

Daniels declined to be interviewed on camera about the letter, but he issued the following statement:

"I have been doing this for years. I have an obligation to let workers know what could happen, based on the outcome of an election. They certainly should vote for the candidate they want."

Sure. Vote for whomever you like, also if the person your boss hasn't given $600,000 to loses, you might be laid off immediately. But vote for whomever you like.

If this somehow isn't flamingly illegal, certainly nobody in Florida or the Barr Justice Department is going to look into it anyhow. But if you don't think letters like this are going out this week to employees all over the country, you haven't been paying attention.