I’m guessing Florida’s 13th Congressional District is some kind of important bellwether. Rep Charlie Crist (D) leads Republican challenger Ana Paulina Luna 55 to 39. Read more here.

“Weeks after Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani first pushed the Hunter Biden files and a collection of sordid dirt to the New York Post in a last-ditch effort to drag his client across the 2020 finish line, both he and the president, as well as several of Trump’s political lieutenants, have grown frustrated at the lack of impact it’s had. But rather than conceding that the broader public might not be interested, Trump and Giuliani have instead put the blame for the failure to break through in part on Attorney General William Barr” the Daily Beast reports.

“In the aftermath of the New York Post reporting earlier this month—for which Trump had personally greenlighted Giuliani’s decision to act as the paper’s source—the former New York City mayor has spoken with President Trump both about the Hunter Biden materials and what could be done about them from a law enforcement perspective, according to a White House official and a source close to Giuliani. Recently, the president and Giuliani discussed their mutual frustrations with the lack of action from Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray saying that the emails and Hunter files have provided legal ammunition to probe the Bidens, the person close to Giuliani said.”

NBC News: “Former Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. announced Thursday that he’s filing a lawsuit against the evangelical school founded by his father. Falwell had led the school for 13 years before he resigned under pressure in late August amid a series of embarrassing scandals. Falwell said he filed a complaint in state court in Lynchburg, Virginia, claiming that Liberty University wrongly damaged his reputation. ‘We attempted to meet several times with the Liberty University Board of Trustees Executive Committee but were unsuccessful in doing so,’ Falwell’s lawyer Robert Raskopf said in a statement. ‘Thus, we were forced to seek remedy for Mr. Falwell’s ongoing injuries and damage to his reputation through the Court.’ A representative for Liberty could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday.”

“Hackers stole $2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party’s account that was being used to help reelect President Donald Trump in the key battleground state, the party’s chairman told The Associated Press on Thursday. The party noticed the suspicious activity on Oct. 22 and contacted the FBI on Friday, said Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt.”

“Hitt said the FBI is investigating. FBI spokesman Leonard Peace did not immediately return a message seeking comment. ‘There’s no doubt RPW is now at a disadvantage with that money being gone,’ Hitt said. The party and campaign needs money late in the race to make quick decisions, he said. Hitt said the hackers were able to manipulate invoices from four vendors who were being paid to send out direct mail for Trump’s reelection efforts and to provide pro-Trump material such as hats that could be handed out to supporters. Invoices were altered so when the party paid them, the money went to the hackers instead of the vendors, Hitt said” – AP.

New York Times: “President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey had been pressing President Trump to quash the investigation, which threatened not only the bank but potentially members of Mr. Erdogan’s family and political party.”

“Mr. Barr pressed [SDNY US Attorney Geoffrey] Berman to allow the bank to avoid an indictment by paying a fine and acknowledging some wrongdoing. In addition, the Justice Department would agree to end investigations and criminal cases involving Turkish and bank officials who were allied with Mr. Erdogan and suspected of participating in the sanctions-busting scheme. The president’s apparent eagerness to please Mr. Erdogan has drawn scrutiny for years. So has the scale and intensity of the lobbying effort by Turkey on issues like its demand for the extradition of one of Mr. Erdogan’s political rivals, a Turkish religious leader living in self-imposed exile in the United States. Mr. Erdogan had a big political stake in the outcome, because the case had become a major embarrassment for him in Turkey. Mr. Trump’s sympathetic response to Mr. Erdogan was especially jarring because it involved accusations that the bank had undercut Mr. Trump’s policy of economically isolating Iran, a centerpiece of his Middle East plan.”

“A local judge and head of Duval County’s vote-counting board has donated repeatedly to President Trump’s re-election campaign and other Republican efforts, and his home is covered in signs supporting Trump, despite rules requiring judges like him to refrain from donations or public support. Duval County senior Judge Brad Shore has served as chairman of the canvassing board because of his role as a county judge. Yet judicial rules bar judges from political donations of any kind. And canvassing board rules bar members from ‘displaying a candidate’s campaign signs.'”

“Senior county Judge Brent Shore, who has refused to change rules barring the public from photographing or videotaping vote-counting meetings, first donated $20 in 2016 to Donald Trump’s initial campaign for president. He has donated 11 more times since then to Trump for a total of $170, as well as donating $178 in the last two years to the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Outside his home, his yard holds a Trump sign and two signs for Republican U.S. Rep. John Rutherford. A Trump-Pence banner hangs from his front window, and four stickers cover the window panels by his front door. ‘Americans for the Trump Agenda,’ reads one. ‘Keep the heat on Congress’. Violating the judicial canons could land Shore, who wouldn’t answer questions for this story, in front of the Judicial Qualifications Commission, where judges are prosecuted and even removed from their positions depending on the seriousness of their violations ” – Jacksonville.com

NBC News: “Joe Biden holds a slight 4-point lead over President Donald Trump in the battleground of Florida, fueled by his standing among seniors and independents, according to the final NBC News/Marist poll of the state before Tuesday’s presidential election. Biden is supported by 51 percent of likely voters, while Trump gets 47 percent. Just a combined 2 percent of likely Florida voters are undecided or are voting for another candidate. Importantly, Biden’s lead is within the poll’s margin of error of plus-minus 4.4 percentage points. In September’s NBC News/Marist poll — conducted after the political conventions — the candidates were tied at 48 percent.”

“UPS told Business Insider that it is the company which lost a cache of documents which Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on his Wednesday night show had mysteriously vanished in transit. UPS Corporate Media Relations Director Glenn Zaccara confirmed to Business Insider that Fox News used UPS to ship the documents. In an emailed statement, Zaccara said: ‘The package was reported with missing contents as it moved within our network… UPS is conducting an urgent investigation into this matter and regrets that the package was damaged. The integrity of our network and the security of our customers’ goods are of utmost importance. We will remain in frequent, direct contact with Fox News as we learn more through our investigation.’ Business Insider has also asked Fox News about the contents of the documents, as well as why Carlson’s team did not keep other copies of the documents” – Business Insider.

USA Today: “Americans are increasingly worried about what will happen at the finish line of this year’s tumultuous election, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds, including whether the voting will be peaceful and the outcome broadly accepted. Three of 4 voters express concern about the possibility of violence on Election Day. Biden holds a steady 8-point lead over Trump in the nationwide poll, 52%-44%, taken after the final presidential debate last Thursday. That reflects little change since the survey taken at Labor Day, the launch of the fall campaign season, when the former vice president led by 7 points, 50%-43%. Democrats hold a double-digit advantage on congressional races. By 49%-39%, those surveyed say they are more likely to vote for an unnamed Democratic House candidate than an unnamed Republican.”

“Even as leading figures in both parties urge their respective presidential nominees to take Texas seriously, the campaigns are still reluctant to spend precious remaining time and money there. Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden is expected to appear in the state before the election, the president has not spent a cent on television commercials, and until this week Mr. Biden had resisted advertising in Texas’ two largest markets, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. Though the state isn’t essential to a Biden victory, Democrats have been more aggressive here. Mr. Biden is dispatching his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, to Texas on Friday, and Democrats have also planned a multicity bus tour across the state. A pair of Democratic billionaires, Dustin Moskovitz and Michael R. Bloomberg, have separately poured money into the state at the 11th hour” – New York Times.

Politico: “Donald Trump won the presidency with 46 percent of the popular vote. His approval rating, according to Gallup, has never hit 50 percent. He remains under 50 percent in national polling averages. The president’s inability to capture a majority of support sheds light on his extraordinary attempts to limit the number of votes cast across the battleground state map — a massive campaign-within-a-campaign to maximize Trump’s chances of winning a contest in which he’s all but certain to earn less than 50 percent of the vote.”

“In Philadelphia, his campaign is videotaping voters as they return ballots. In Nevada, it’s suing to force elections officials in Nevada’s Democratic-heavy Clark County to more rigorously examine ballot signatures for discrepancies that could disqualify them. The Trump campaign has sued to prevent the expanded use of ballot drop boxes in Ohio, sought to shoot down an attempt to expand absentee ballot access in New Hampshire and tried to intervene against a lawsuit brought by members of the Navajo Nation in Arizona which sought to allow ballots received from reservations after Election Day because of mail delays. Never before in modern presidential politics has a candidate been so reliant on wide-scale efforts to depress the vote as Trump.”

The US reach a new high, exceeding 80,000 confirmed coronavirus cases Wednesday for the third time in six days as the nation is gripped in another sweeping COVID outbreak, according to data from worldometers.info.

According to the data, 81,581 reported to have confirmed cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, with Texas, Illinois, Florida and California topping the nation.  Every state and Washington, DC registered new cases.

The US also nearly doubled the number of new cases of the next nation on the list, India, which has four times the US population.  For the second day in a row, the nation topped 1,000 daily fatalities.

Florida’s republican governor, Ron DeSantis, ran into a snag when he went to vote early at a polling station in Tallahassee on Wednesday when a poll worker noticed that the address the governor gave as his home address didn’t match what was in the voter registry, the Associated Press reports.

The Trump ally has pushed to limit voting rights in the state, including denying people the ability to vote if their information doesn’t match voting rolls.  DeSantis, however, had no way of proving he lived at the state governor’s house, not at the address in the voter roll:  2185 Pretty Lane, West Palm Beach, Florida–more than 400 miles away.

Being governor, however, has its privileges.  In this case, poll workers were able to correct DeSantis’ file to allow the republican to vote.

Tucker Carlson was shocked and amazed that the *only set of super-secret documents* he had to prove the conspiracy–purported by Toby Blonicalewinsky – was lost in the mail after his staff mailed them via an overnight service to him in California.

Yes, you read that right:  every document Carlson had to prove the criminality of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden suddenly disappeared en route to California and nobody knows where they are.

Apparently, nobody at Fox “News” or on Tucker’s Crack staff thought to, y’know, scan them or make copies of them before shipping the *only set of super-secret documents* to Carlson while he was prepping to interview Bluto Blutarsky in California.

Obviously, it was a Deep State operative in the shipping company.  Or maybe at Fox “News.”  Or maybe even… (insert drama sting here)… in Tucker’s head!

“Holding a bible in one hand and a pistol in the other, Idaho’s rogue lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, appeared in a video from an anti-lockdown group that declared it will ignore any state emergency orders that it believes violates people’s rights. She also signed a declaration from the Idaho Freedom Fund that seems to question the existence of the pandemic that has killed 225,000 Americans: ‘The fact that a pandemic may or may not be occurring changes nothing about the meaning or intent of the state constitution in the preservation of our inalienable rights.’ The video, which featured a host of other lawmakers, was published a day after Gov. Brad Little had to push the state reopening plan back into a more restrictive Phase 3 because an alarming spike in new COVID-19 cases has strained hospitals” – Daily Beast.

Florida republican Senator Rick Scott has made a six-figure ad buy in major markets to help the flagging campaign of incumbent GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and to boost his prospect in 2024, Politico reports.

The former CEO of a hospital chain found guilty of a insurance fraud and fined $2 billion, Scott reportedly has aspirations for the White House himself, aiming at a 2024 run.  His assistance for Trump will position him as a power playing in the republican Party in coming years.

Scott has spend much of his own money he received from Columbia/HCA on his campaigns for governor and Senator, on which he used $150 million of his own funds. 

“A spokesperson for the Trump campaign responded to the aftermath of the event in an email saying, ‘President Trump loves his supporters and was thrilled to visit Omaha last night,’ while also touting that “despite the cold, tens of thousands of people showed up for his rally.’ Samantha Zager, the Trump campaign’s deputy national press secretary, blamed “local road closures and resulting congestion” for the delays but added that ‘at the guest departure location, we had tents, heaters, generators, hot cocoa, and handwarmers available for guests… We always strive to provide the best guest experience at our events and we care about their safety,’ Zager said” – Daily Beast.