“No American President has ever been charged with a criminal offense. But, as Donald Trump fights to hold on to the White House, he and those around him surely know that if he loses—an outcome that nobody should count on—the presumption of immunity that attends the Presidency will vanish. Given that more than a dozen investigations and civil suits involving Trump are currently under way, he could be looking at an endgame even more perilous than the one confronted by Nixon. The Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said of Trump, ‘If he loses, you have a situation that’s not dissimilar to that of Nixon when he resigned. Nixon spoke of the cell door clanging shut.'”

“Trump has famously survived one impeachment, two divorces, six bankruptcies, twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct, and an estimated four thousand lawsuits. Few people have evaded consequences more cunningly. That run of good luck may well end, perhaps brutally, if he loses to Joe Biden” – Jane Mayer.

Axios: “President Trump has told confidants he’ll declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he’s ‘ahead’ according to three sources familiar with his private comments. That’s even if the Electoral College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes in key states like Pennsylvania. Trump has privately talked through this scenario in some detail in the last few weeks, describing plans to walk up to a podium on election night and declare he has won. For this to happen, his allies expect he would need to either win or have commanding leads in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Arizona and Georgia. Trump’s team is preparing to falsely claim that mail-in ballots counted after Nov. 3 – a legitimate count expected to favor Dems – are evidence of election fraud.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said that the nation’s condition is “not a good situation” even as incumbent republican president candidate Donald Trump tours swing states saying that the US is “rounding the turn” with the coronavirus, the Washington Post reports.

Fauci called for an “abrupt change” in the national policy as the United States sees new records in daily reported coronavirus cases.  It marks the first time Fauci has overtly questioned the administration’s policy and management of the pandemic.

While the public views Fauci as a more trusted source for information on the coronavirus, Trump has dismissed the advice of the medical professionals like public health experts and virologists on the coronavirus task force.

“Right now, the public health aspect of the task force has diminished greatly,” Fauci said.  “The last time I spoke to the president was not about any policy; it was when he was recovering in Walter Reed, he called me up.”

The Texas Supreme Court on Sunday has rejected a motion by three republican candidates and a conservative activist to invalidate 127,000 ballots that were cast in Harris County through drive-thru voting, the Austin Stateman reports.

The same complaint will be heard by a federal judge on Monday, with Democratic Senate candidate MJ Hegar and other Democratic organizations requesting to join the defense.

….all I needed, everything went swimmingly from there. He was so highly regarded & respected in Scotland and beyond that years of future turmoil was avoided. Sean was a great actor and an even greater man. Sincere condolences to his family!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2020

“On Monday, November 2, Joe Biden will travel to Cleveland, Ohio to discuss bringing Americans together to address the crises facing the country and winning the battle for the soul of the nation. Additional details to follow” – Biden Campaign press release.

“For 18 days of early voting, Harris County residents waited in line, had their identities verified by poll workers, and cast their votes in a presidential election that has seen record-breaking early turnout. But for the nearly 127,000 people who did so at drive-thru polling places instead of in traditional indoor sites, many are now watching with fear as a wealthy conservative activist, a Republican state rep and two GOP candidates aim to throw out their ballots at the last minute.”

“The plaintiffs, all Republicans, are conservative activist Steven Hotze, state Rep. Steve Toth of The Woodlands, congressional candidate Wendell Champion and judicial candidate Sharon Hemphill. They argue that the county’s new drive-thru voting sites are an illegal expansion of curbside voting and violate Texas election law and the U.S. Constitution. Curbside voting, a separate option long available under Texas election law, requires workers at every polling place to deliver onsite curbside ballots to voters who are ‘physically unable to enter the polling place without personal assistance or likelihood of injuring the voter’s health.’ Hotze is an active GOP donor and is one of the most prolific culture warriors on the right. He’s a fierce opponent of same-sex marriage and was a key figure in the unsuccessful push for the 2017 ‘bathroom bill’ in the Texas Legislature. This year, he has filed numerous lawsuits seeking to overturn Gov. Greg Abbott’s coronavirus restrictions and block Harris County’s efforts to make it easier for people to vote. And he left a voicemail for Abbott’s chief of staff this summer telling him to shoot and kill people protesting the in-custody death of George Floyd” – Texas Tribune.

New York Times: “When President Trump talks about polling, his focus is very much on survey-takers that he thinks are good for him. Polls that show him trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr. — virtually all national polls — are simply ‘fake news.’ The president’s blinkered view has created something of an alternate universe, one not governed by polling averages or independent analysis but by declarative statements that, at times, feel as if they are coming out of nowhere.”

“This month, Mr. Trump proclaimed on Twitter that he was ‘winning BIG in all of the polls that matter.’ Such polls seem to boil down to Rasmussen Reports, which consistently — and in isolation — has a rosier picture for the president nationally than other surveys do, and the Trafalgar Group, which has had better numbers for Mr. Trump in Midwestern states.
His choose-your-own-adventure approach to polling that has shown little understanding of data science, and his pronouncements have come as his advisers are trying to take in serious polling and data analysis to make sense of what the electorate voting in 2020 will look like.”

“President Trump trails by 10 percentage points among voters nationally in the final days of his re-election campaign, facing substantial public anxiety over the coronavirus pandemic but with broad approval of his management of the economy, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds. Former Vice President Joe Biden leads Mr. Trump, 52% to 42%, in the poll’s final reading of voter opinion before Election Day, essentially unchanged from Mr. Biden’s 11-point advantage in mid-October. In particular, women and seniors have turned against the president, the poll finds, with both groups favoring Mr. Biden by double-digit margins. However, the survey finds the race tightening when the landscape is narrowed to a set of 12 battleground states. Mr. Biden holds a 6-point lead in those states, 51% to 45%, compared with a 10-point lead last month” – WSJ.

Molly Jong-Fast: “There is a low whine of panic emanating from Trump, and his terrible surrogates, his children. If you’re quiet you can almost hear it. Friday night, the far-right website The Washington Examiner magically produced ANOTHER Hunter Biden laptop because the first one didn’t work. But Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon’s October Surprise surprised no one. In fact, Bannon and Rudy’s October Surprise managed to completely embarrass the almost unembarrassable New York Post and opinion side of The Wall Street Journal. No small feat to make the WSJ opinion page blush. None of the old tricks are working. The Trump administration, which is really just the taxpayer-funded arm of the Trump campaign, decided to make Friday a ‘national day of remembrance for Americans killed by illegal aliens.’ It was a typical Trumpian xenophobia play, likely cooked up by America’s favorite Jewish Santa Monica Nazi, but the problem was that we’re in the middle of a pandemic, so it immediately prompted the question of why hasn’t Trump made a day of remembrance for the more than 230,000 Americans who’ve died of coronavirus?”

“Trump moved his ‘election day party’ from his D.C. hotel to the White House. He said later, ‘But I know the mayor has shut down Washington, D.C. And if that’s the case, we’ll probably stay here or pick another location.’ Maybe, or maybe he can see what the state, national and district-level polling is saying, and it’s saying shellacking. Maybe he’ll get the wild reality television ending he dreams of. Or maybe Trump’s just done.”

From Edward-Isaac Dovere. Will publish an update when Sullivan’s campaign blames it on some outside vendor whom they won’t identify.

“Donald Trump will never really go away, even if he is resoundingly defeated on Tuesday. Not on November 4, not on January 20, not when he dies, not in a hundred years. He may well be what future generations remember most about our era. Not because of what he accomplished, but because the story of a mad king is an immortal tale. The phenomenon is rare, which is why it is so captivating… King George III of England, whose madness would be made into a Hollywood movie, supposedly tried to shake hands with a tree, thinking it was the King of Prussia, although this story was almost surely apocryphal.”

“Trump is not trying to shake hands with a tree, but he does have many of the features, weaknesses, and idiosyncrasies of the stereotype. The president is incapable of empathy, susceptible to flattery, and prone to self-destructive behavior. He has a mercurial family that exerts undue influence over his administration. He traffics in the most absurd conspiracy theories. His wealth, or lack thereof, is shrouded in secrecy. He is insecure. He lays out his deepest prejudices on Twitter for the world to see. He captivates crowds. Everything about him—the hair, the tan, the long tie, the goofy hat—is outlandish. What will make the Trump story particularly irresistible for future generations is that it’s not just a comic farce; it’s also of huge significance to anyone who wants to understand the United States in the early 21st century” – The Atlantic.

Politico: “On Tuesday, Republicans could add to their ranks a 25-year-old congressman bent on being as disruptive to the right as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is to the left — or suffer an embarrassing defeat in a district they have no business losing. Either way, the election here in North Carolina’s 11th District is poised to rattle the Grand Old Party.”

“Madison Cawthorn, the paraplegic survivor of a near-fatal car crash, achieved instant star power after a June primary in which he toppled the candidate endorsed by both President Donald Trump and former GOP Rep. Mark Meadows, who resigned the seat to become the president’s chief of staff. Armed with his newfound fame, Cawthorn has centered his campaign on a scathing critique of his own party, calling it xenophobic, feckless and devoid of empathy — all while aligning himself closely with a president accused of embodying those very traits. ‘I definitely am running against the Republican Party,’ he said in an interview this week, calling the GOP ‘timid’ on everything from race to immigration to health care. ‘They’re a party that doesn’t try to tackle real issues. They are a party that always says no to things.'”

Our numbers are looking VERY good all over. Sleepy Joe is already beginning to pull out of certain states. The Radical Left is going down!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2020

“As the presidential race enters its final days, competition remains fierce in two of the most important battleground states, with former vice president Joe Biden holding a slight lead over President Trump in Pennsylvania and the two candidates in a virtual dead heat in Florida, according to two Washington Post-ABC News polls” – Washington Post.

Daily Beast: “When Democrats woke up with sharp pangs of despair following the election of Donald Trump four years ago, a type of conventional wisdom took hold: The party had failed to inspire voters by becoming stale on policy and the tactical elements of politics. Four years later, Democrats have placed their hopes on the shoulders of Joe Biden, a 77-year-old nominee whose prior runs for the presidency barely inspired anyone and whose brand of politics was, by his own admission, a throwback. If the polls are to be believed, it will prove successful. Biden may have once appeared to be the wrong man for the moment. But his former Democratic opponents now believe that the moment—rife with social discord, economic despair, and a deadly and raging pandemic—became right for him.”

Arizona: Biden 49 – Trump 43
Florida: Biden 47 – Trump 44
Pennsylvania: Biden 49 – Trump 43
Wisconsin: Biden 52 – Trump 41
Read more here.

Two days after Donald Trump, Jr. said coronavirus fatalities are “almost nothing,” the US eclipsed 900 coronavirus fatalities for the fifth consecutive day.

The United States also surpassed 80,000 new daily coronavirus cases for the sixth time in nine days.  The seven-day moving average hit an all-time high of 81,631.

Illinois jumped to the top of new reported cases, recording just shy of 8,000, while Missouri recorded the most fatalities with 77.

For the recordm on September 5th, Pirro said Republicans had been “harassed, threatened, menaced” by BLM activists leaving the RNC speech at the White House – among probably a whole bunch of other bullshit.