Andrew Feinberg/Independent:
The Hunter Biden story proves Trump is losing the election — badly — and his campaign knows it
Republican insiders told me that people who voted for Trump in 2016 aren’t connecting with these issues, which mean nothing to them in terms of their own lives. Unfortunately, his team aren’t smart enough to pivot
The 2020 general election is in 18 days, with early and absentee voting underway in most states. More than 215,000 Americans are dead from a virus that is still spreading unchecked within the United States, 25 million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits, and with no economic stimulus deal in sight and another wave of Covid-19 infections looming, even more of their countrymen and women are at risk of joining the ranks of the dead or unemployed.
But as far as 45th President of the United States, those running his re-election campaign, and the nebulous circles of influence surrounding them are concerned, it might as well be 2016.
With just over two weeks to go before Americans render their final verdict on his presidency, Donald Trump’s campaign has taken on an aura that is equal parts reality show rerun and a heaping chicken soup for his unceasingly aggrieved soul.
Trump's comments about QAnon at his town hall are exactly what he said about David Duke and Charlottesville and white supremacy: I know nothing about it but I hate antifa blah blah blah
He refused to disavow.
These town halls were ships passing in the night… Biden steaming into port and Trump taking on water as the radio goes silent.
Trump had a serious case of coronavirus, and did not follow CDC protocol for isolation, up to 20 days. His behavior is consistent , of course, as he puts everyone at risk to satisfy his own whims.
Monmouth:
Dem Gains in Key Races
Using a likely voter model with a relatively high level of turnout, the race stands at 51% for Biden and 44% for Trump. The race tightens to 49% Biden and 47% Trump when using a likely voter model with lower turnout. Trump beat Hillary Clinton by just under 4 points in 2016. Arizona has given its electoral votes to the Democratic candidate just once (1996) in the past 70 years.
“Biden is currently on track to do slightly better than Clinton did with Latino voters and possibly white voters as well. Those shifts would be enough for a victory if these numbers hold,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
AP-NORC:
AP-NORC poll: Americans critical of Trump handling of virus
Less than three weeks from Election Day, majorities of Americans are highly critical of President Donald Trump’s handling of both the coronavirus pandemic and his own illness, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The survey also shows that few Americans have high levels of trust in the information the White House has released about Trump’s health. Initial accounts of the president’s condition were murky and contradictory, and the White House is still refusing to say when the president last tested negative for COVID-19 before his infection became public.
Kevin M Kruse/NBC:
Republican voter suppression efforts were banned for decades. Here's what changed.
For the past 40 years, the GOP has been barred from engaging in these kinds of "election security" campaigns.
For the past 40 years, the party organization has been bound by a "consent decree" secured in federal court in 1982. As a result, the GOP was barred from engaging in these kinds of "election security" campaigns, which seem to be little more than efforts at voter intimidation and election interference.
The decree had its origins in the 1981 gubernatorial race in New Jersey. Widely understood as the first real referendum on the Reagan administration, the contest drew intense attention from both parties.
To support the campaign of Republican nominee Tom Kean Sr., the RNC dispatched political operative John A. Kelly to the state. Kelly — who was soon revealed to have fraudulently claimed to have an undergraduate degree from Notre Dame, a law degree from Fordham, a past role in law enforcement and an official position with the Fraternal Order of Police — saw his mission as exposing "voter fraud." He launched a grandly titled "National Ballot Security Task Force" to identify suspicious Democratic voters and monitor selected polling places…
Democrats responded by suing the Republicans in federal court. The lawsuit sought $10 million in damages "for the deprivation of the right to vote" and an injunction preventing Republicans from trying the same thing in other elections. It also demanded that Republicans produce internal correspondence and documents about the task force to demonstrate its illegal intent. For the suit, Democrats provided affidavits from 80 voters who said they had either left the polls themselves or seen others do so due to the presence of the armed guards. One of them, an African American woman in Trenton, reported that task force members stopped her, demanded to see her voter registration card and then turned her away when she did not produce it.
Rather than risk embarrassment during a trial or an adverse ruling after it, the RNC agreed to settle the case with a consent decree. The consent decree, an agreement between the two parties, required the national and state GOP to seek court approval of any future "ballot security" programs, subject to being found in contempt if they ever engaged in similar practices.
Omaha World-Herald:
Trump 'kisses dictators' butts' and 'mocks evangelicals,' Sasse says in call with constituents
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., absolutely torched President Donald Trump over his handling of the pandemic and a host of other areas during a telephone town hall with his constituents.
An audio clip of the call, obtained by the Washington Examiner, has been posted to YouTube. A woman can be heard asking Sasse why he criticizes the president so much.
Sasse responded by first talking about issues on which he agrees with Trump, but then cited areas where the president’s views are deficient — not just for a Republican, he says, but for an American.
“The way he kisses dictators' butts. I mean, the way he ignores that the Uighurs are in literal concentration camps in Xinjiang right now,” Sasse said. “He hasn't lifted a finger on behalf of the Hong-Kongers. I mean, he and I have a very different foreign policy. It isn’t just that he fails to lead our allies. It’s that the United States now regularly sells out our allies under his leadership. The way he treats women and spends like a drunken sailor. The ways I criticize President Obama for that kind of spending, I've criticized President Trump for as well. He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors. His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He's flirted with white supremacists."
Philip Bump/WaPo:
Even in places where nearly everyone votes by mail, Democrats are already voting more heavily
Trump’s broader point is not that he thinks most Americans are unintelligent. It is that, to some extent, he thinks he will win the election, because, as happened four years ago, the stars will align and unexpected grass-roots support will push him over the finish line in just enough places. He talks about this through the lens of his campaign’s enthusiasm advantage, the determination in multiple polls that voters planning to support him are more enthusiastic about him than supporters of former vice president Joe Biden are about Biden. Given that, how could he lose?
The answer is simple: Biden voters are also enthusiastic about voting but often because they want to vote against Trump, often far more than they want to vote for Biden. In other words, Trump’s right that everyone wants to go vote because he’s on the ballot. He just ignores that this is poised to work against him.
Over the course of this election cycle, polling has repeatedly captured unusually high levels of enthusiasm about voting. In Gallup’s polling, for example, the percentage of respondents who say they’re more enthusiastic about voting this year than in previous years has consistently been higher than in recent elections, even after enthusiasm has spiked late in the campaign.
Politico:
‘The Sleeping Giant Is Finally Awake’
After decades of lackluster turnout, Hispanics could turn Arizona blue.
It struck me as a thankless job. And yet, the excitement Cruz and Perez showed when that perfect stranger sent that third text message—the sheer joy, the sense of a sudden bond—was remarkable. When we got to talking, I asked them about doing such menial work under such punishing conditions. Cruz rolled her eyes. “If our forefathers could do manual labor in this heat,” she told me, “we can stand here in this heat and make sure people remember to vote.”
Some follow-up on the ongoing issue of taking responsibility for COVID in the meatpacking industry:
NY Daily News:
Brazilian meatpacker cops to U.S. corruption crimes weeks after receiving more Trump admin bailouts
J&F Investimentos, the controlling shareholder of the sprawling JBS meatpacking empire, had one of its attorneys admit in a video conference that it dished out nearly $150 million in bribes to top Brazilian officials between 2005 and 2017 in exchange for getting state-backed financing to expand its meat business into the U.S.
It also came up in the Colorado senate race, here covered by
9News.The problem is that since the Trump WH supplied JBS with bailout money intended for US farmers, the taxpayer will wind up paying any fines they are levied.
Going forward, we need to see if they have any barriers to further US contracts, given that they’re admitted crooks.
Jennifer Horn/USA Today:
Former New Hampshire GOP chair: My fellow Republicans, Trump does not deserve your loyalty
Where is the responsible governance, the individual liberty, equal justice and opportunity for all? I ask my Republican friends: Is this your party?
As a former Republican state party chair, I understand well how difficult it is to even imagine voting outside the party, and I understand the sense of loyalty to party that decades of activism engenders.
But to pledge allegiance to a political party, void of principle or honor, is an empty oath that will not serve country or conscience. Where once we stood together to advocate for responsible governance, individual liberty, equal justice and opportunity for all, today’s GOP platform is nothing more than a vow to support, protect, defend and defer to Donald Trump.
