Donald Trump (screen capture) So. Much. Winning. With talks for a fiscal stimulus package stalled and coronavirus infections spiking in states across the U.S., the stock market tanked to the tune of 900 points on Monday. From CNBC:
The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 900 points lower, or 3.2%, and was headed for its biggest one-day loss since June 11. The S&P 500 slid 2.7% and the Nasdaq Composite dipped 2.5%.
Monday’s decline erased the monthly gains for the Dow industrials.
The decline came amid a record surge in new coronavirus cases in the U.S. The country saw more than 83,000 new infections on both Friday and Saturday after outbreaks in Sun Belt states, surpassing a previous record of roughly 77,300 cases set in July, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The data also showed the country has reported an average of 68,767 cases per day over the past seven days, a record.
26-year-old James Blight (mug shot) Police say a 26-year-old Trump supporter stole a bulldozer from a construction site and drove through the front yards of a Black neighborhood in Florida in order to remove pro-Joe Biden campaign signs. In addition to the private property destroyed, the man – James Blight – ran down a speed limit sign and tore through a fence. From the Washington Post:
Residents in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Haines City, Fla., knew something was off on Saturday when they saw a young White man driving a bulldozer on the street. As he made his way down the block, the man began running over every lawn sign in sight supporting Joe Biden.
“This man came onto my property, took the two Joe Biden signs I had in my yard and then came back with a bulldozer to run down my fence,” Adam Burgess, a local homeowner, told Bay News 9.
The man, later identified by police as 26-year-old James Blight, was charged with grand theft auto and trespassing, according to the outlet.The incident in Florida is the latest example of increased tensions days before the election, as yard signs and other public proclamations of support for either presidential candidate have become a point of contention — and have occasionally led to violence.
Former vice Mayor Adam Burgess told Bay News 9: “To come into our community and destroy property – it speaks to the dog whistles that Donald Trump has been putting out his whole campaign. Stand back and stand by and we have guys in bulldozers doing this. What does the president have to say about that?”
“What does the President have to say about this?” Haines City resident upset about destroyed property after @realDonaldTrump supporter tore down his fence to take @JoeBiden sign from his yard. Full story on @BN9pic.twitter.com/6agYf6E6OZ
Donald Trump (photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr – CC License) Should Donald Trump win reelection he’ll move to immediately fire FBI Director Christopher Wray and also expects to replace CIA Director Gina Haspel and Defense Secretary Mark Esper reports Axios.
Wray and Haspel are despised and distrusted almost universally in Trump’s inner circle. He would have fired both already, one official said, if not for the political headaches of acting before Nov. 3.
Why it matters: A win, no matter the margin, will embolden Trump to ax anyone he sees as constraining him from enacting desired policies or going after perceived enemies.
As for Wray, whose expected firing was first reported by the Washington Post, Trump is angry his second FBI chief didn’t launch a formal investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business connections — and didn’t purge more officials Trump believes abused power to investigate his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia.
Trump also grew incensed when Wray testified in September that the FBI has not seen widespread election fraud, including with mail-in ballots.
Trump soured on Esper over the summer when the Defense secretary rebuffed the idea of sending active-duty military into the streets to deal with racial justice protests and distanced himself from the clearing of Lafayette Square for a photo op at St. John’s church.
L-R Former Vice President Joe Biden, Donald Trump From CBS News:
In the final stretch of the campaign, we find three Southern battlegrounds that could still go either way. Our estimates show Joe Biden with just a two-point edge over President Trump in Florida, Biden up four points in North Carolina, and the contest even in Georgia.
Millions have already voted and many others say they’ve already decided.
While early voters in each state told us they substantially favored Biden, those who have not yet voted heavily favor Mr. Trump, setting up a key turnout test running now through Election Day for both parties.
Sixty-one percent of people who already voted said they voted for Biden while 59 percent of those who haven’t yet said they were in favor of Trump.
This post is not to insinuate Biden has this in the bag. It’s meant to encourage everyone to vote, vote, vote, because we’re in this to win. (graphics via CBS News)
(screen capture) ‘The Village People’ (Kenan Thompson, Mikey Day, Beck Bennett, Chris Redd, Bowen Yang) stopped by SNL’s Weekend Update to address Donald Trump using their music at his rallies. Earlier this week, video clips of the Trumpster ‘dancing’ (kinda, sorta, ish) to their disco hit “YMCA” made their way onto the interwebs becoming a source for numerous viral memes. For months now, recording artists like Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Phil Collins and even Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber have publicly asked the Trump camp to stop using their music at campaign rallies. Tony Award-winner Betty Buckley recently fired off an epic takedown of the Donald after learning her recording of “Memory” was being played at Trump events.
Academy Award winner Meryl Streep Alan Alda, Annette Bening, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close offer a reading from Trumpty Dumpty Wanted A Crown by film star John Lithgow. From the YouTube page:
John Lithgow presents a 21-episode video series based on the poetry in his book, TRUMPTY DUMPTY WANTED A CROWN: Verses for a Despotic Age—starring 19 luminaries from the acting, literary, and political spheres.
Covering Trump’s impeachment, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and much more, Lithgow’s new book arrives at a time when we need it most. With the 2020 election looming, it’s important to remember all of the atrocities of the past four years—and to do everything we can to prevent more.
As Lithgow says, “I wrote this book to make you laugh, to make you mad, and to make you remember… and maybe also to make you vote.”
The Trump campaign and the Nevada GOP are attempting to stop the count of mail-in ballots in my home city of Las Vegas (Democratic stronghold Clark County) by suing the Nevada secretary of state and Clark County registrar on Friday. From The Hill:
The lawsuit, filed less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 elections, says observers cannot get close enough to workers and machines as they tally votes in Nevada’s largest and most Democratic county, which includes the city of Las Vegas.
Republicans are arguing that observers cannot confirm that votes get second- and third-step validation, warning that the situation runs the risk of permitting fraudulent votes from being tabulated.
Judge James Wilson in Carson City later decided to not issue an immediate order to stop the count but did schedule a hearing on the issue set to take place next Wednesday.
The Nevada Democratic Party dismissed the lawsuit as an effort by Republicans to suppress the vote, casting it as a “desperate play.”
“This lawsuit from Trump and Republicans is nothing more than an obvious attempt to impede record-breaking momentum in Clark County, the most diverse county in the state,” said Nevada State Democratic Party Chairman William McCurdy. “The demands articulated in the GOP’s lawsuit amount to voter suppression, plain and simple.”
Currently, 516,000+ ballots have been cast in Nevada in the 2020 general election. As you can see via the Secretary of State’s website, Democrats are voting by mail at more than twice the rate of Republicans. • 304,448 mail-in ballots – 160,125 received from registered Democrats; 74,384 from registered Republicans; 69,939 Other • 211,930 in-person votes have been cast – 70,504 by registered Democrats; 99,808 by registered Republicans; 41,618 Other
A small group of Log Cabin Republicans and other quislings made their way up to San Vicente Boulevard to Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood last night chanting “gays for Trump, gays for Trump.” Hardly a face mask in sight – which is local ordinance – but who’s surprised?
Donald Trump and Joe Biden (screen capture)NowThis News serves up the “Top Moments” from the final presidential debate of the 2020 election cycle:
From Donald Trump comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln to Joe Biden blasting the president’s COVID-19 response, here are some of the biggest moments of the final 2020 presidential debate.
The last presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was a lot less chaotic than the first.
Still, there were some big standout moments throughout the night, such as Donald Trump saying he was the ‘least racist person’ in the room and Joe Biden talking about the government’s coronavirus response.
Three quick real-time polls all showed most folks felt Joe Biden, as with the first presidential debate, came out on top. From the NY Times: This time, the instant polls had a consistent and clear story: Mr. Biden won the debate by a double-digit margin.If the results in the chart look familiar, that’s because they’re reminiscent of many national survey results we’ve seen over the last month. You could interpret that to mean that the debate was more or less a draw on the merits, with most Biden supporters concluding that Mr. Biden won, and vice versa for the Trump supporters.Indeed, the CNN/SSRS poll didn’t find that either candidate improved his favorability rating compared with interviews conducted before the debate.
