Ron Brownstein: “The coming generational backlash against Donald Trump may represent only the first tremor in a much larger earthquake threatening the GOP through the 2020s. Trump is eroding the Republican Party’s position with younger voters at precisely the same time as the massively diverse Millennials and Generation Z are poised to become the largest voting bloc in the electorate, as new research released this week shows.”

“That prospect presents both a near- and long-term danger for the GOP. The immediate problem is that polls nationally and in key swing states show Joe Biden positioned to significantly expand on Hillary Clinton’s margin among younger voters, even as many more of them are signaling they intend to vote than did in 2016.’There’s a consistent picture coming together that says we’re going to have the highest youth turnout since 2008, and maybe since 1992,’ Ben Wessel, the executive director of NextGen America, a group working to mobilize younger voters for Democrats, told me. ‘And they are rebuking Trump and the Republicans in a way we haven’t seen since the 2008 presidential’ race. If anything, the longer-term trends may be more ominous. The electorate is beginning its most profound generational transition since the early 1980s, when Baby Boomers became the largest voting bloc, dislodging the Greatest Generation of Americans, who came of age during the Depression and World War II.”

Even though they turned down the first shot at covering the story, Fox “News” took up the banner of the Hunter Biden laptop story, mentioning it 40% more times this year than they did Wikipedia and the stolen emails in 2016, according to the New York Times.

The unverified story, first reported by the New York Post and unconfirmed by other new sources, claims that a laptop supposedly owned by Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden, contained incriminating emails concerning his father and compromising photos of himself.

During Thursday’s second (and thankfully last) presidential debate, incumbent republican nominee Donald Trump made a shocking claim to those of us who follow data.

“There was a spike in Florida, and it’s now gone,” Trump said. “There was a very big spike in Texas; it’s now gone. There was a very big spike in Arizona; it’s now gone.”

It relates to something Trump has advocated since the beginning of the pandemic, and it’s echoed by his personal advisor on the pandemic, Fox “News” personality and neuroradiologist Scott Atlas:  If you test less, you identify fewer cases.  Identifying fewer cases means that you can claim victory.

Axios: “Sen. Kamala Harris appealed to Black voters in Georgia on Friday, urging them to “honor the ancestors” by casting ballots, and again calling President Trump a ‘racist.’ The U.S. saw a significant decline in African-American voter turnout between 2012 and 2016, reaching its lowest point since 2000. Higher turnout among Black Americans this year could tip the balance in favor of Democrats in key battleground states, including Georgia.”

“Black voters overwhelmingly prefer Democrat Joe Biden, but Trump is earning more support nationally from Black men than he received in 2016 — 17% — up from 14%, Axios’ Alexi McCammond notes. ‘We’re not going to let anyone mess with our right to vote,’ she said at a “Get Out the Vote” rally at Morehouse College in Atlanta. ‘Voting is about honoring those ancestors, honoring what they fought for and what they sacrificed for our right to vote,’ she said.”

“We represent Mr. Jared Kushner and Ms. Ivanka Trump. I am writing concerning the false, malicious and defamatory ads that the Lincoln Project is displaying on billboards in Times Square. Those ads show Ms. Trump smiling and gesturing toward a death count of Americans and New Yorkers, and attribute to Mr. Kushner the statement that ‘[New Yorkers] are going to suffer and that’s their problem’ (alteration in original), with body bags underneath.”

“Of course, Mr. Kushner never made any such statement, Ms. Trump never made any such gesture, and the Lincoln Project’s representations that they did areas outrageous and shameful libel. If these billboard ads are not immediately removed, we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages” – Cease and desist letter from attorney Marc Kasowitz to the principals of The Lincoln Project.

UPDATE 9:52 PM EDT 10/23/20 The Lincoln Project responded with the following statement

According to the COVID Tracking Project, the United States set a record for new daily coronavirus cases with more than 83,000 confirmed cases on Friday.

The cases in the US skyrocketed because of increasing infection rates throughout 31 states, particularly in the Midwest and Southern states.  Unlike the outbreak that started the pandemic in the United States, which were centered in a few urban areas, this outbreak is spread through less populated centers spread across the entire country.

“One key way we got through previous waves was by moving health-care workers around. That’s just not possible when the virus is surging everywhere,” said Eleanor J. Murray, an epidemiologist at Boston University.

The number of cases continues to rise, making the mark likely temporary.

Cleveland.com “A Miami County resident has told police that he was approached about helping to arrest Gov. Mike DeWine at his Greene County home and try him for ‘tyranny.’ The case has been referred to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, though a spokesman declined to discuss further details, citing security reasons. A resident of Piqua, in a police report filed last Friday, said that he was contacted earlier that day by Renea Turner, an activist who has been protesting DeWine’s coronavirus policies. Cleveland.com is withholding the man’s name for safety reasons.”

“During the call, Turner was reported to have said the plan was to arrest the governor later that weekend, try him for several supposed crimes, and sentence him to a penalty that could include exile or execution, according to the Ohio Capital Journal, which first reported the story, as well as state Rep. John Becker of Clermont County in a YouTube video. The man told police that he told Turner that he didn’t want to be involved and that he would contact authorities. The man could not be reached for comment.”

“The Times was able to identify public philanthropic promises that appear either to have been exaggerated or to have never materialized. In each case, the size of his pledge exceeded what he told the I.R.S. he had given in a particular year.”

“In 2009, for example, he agreed to rent his Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, N.Y., to the Libyan dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who hoped to stay in a tent on the grounds during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Though the plans fell apart when local residents objected, Colonel Qaddafi made a payment of $150,000, which Mr. Trump told CNN in 2011 that he had given to charity. His 2009 tax returns, however, reported only $22,796 in business and personal cash gifts” – New York Times.

The US Postal Service has returned 137 sorting machines to operational status, per the order of a federal judge who instructed the USPS to return to service to levels it maintained prior to the appointment of Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General, the Associated Press reports.

On September 28th, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the machines reinstalled so that the Postal Service could handle the volume of mail expected due to the upcoming election, when a record number of people are expected to vote via mail-in ballots. The USPS reports that it has no plan to dismantle any additional machines.

There’s almost ten of these clipped by Aaron Rupar of Vox on Friday.

More than 55 million people watched Thursday’s second presidential debate on the six largest broadcast and cable networks according to preliminary ratings from Nielsen, CNN reports.

The numbers are about 11% lower than the audience reported on those networks for the first debate, when 62 million watched on the same networks.

These figures do not include those who streamed the event online or those who may have recorded the debate to watch at a future time.

Looks like TrumpCovidPlan.com had a lower production budget than National Zero.

Politico: “On the debate stage, the president’s campaign advisers and Capitol Hill allies say their candidate delivered a restrained performance and persuasive closing pitch — one that could pull late-breaking voters into his column and put vulnerable GOP candidates at ease after months of being dragged down by the president’s deteriorating standing in key battleground states.”

“As he returns to base-revving campaign events where unpredictability reigns, Republicans are worried Trump could quickly undo any gains he might have made here Thursday. The president’s hourlong rallies have become ground zero for his worst impulses — from coarse language and meandering monologues to misleading claims about the Covid-19 pandemic — and often result in controversies that aides must spend days cleaning up. Recently, Trump has used the venues to push dubious and unconfirmed reports about Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, that have little resonance with pocketbook voters. ‘The president’s job 10 days out is to convince voters that Joe Biden would decimate American industries, pack the courts and send small businesses back into coronavirus lockdowns,’ said one adviser to the Trump campaign. ‘He’s screwing himself with the Hunter Biden stuff and he needs to cut it out,’ the person added.”

Joe Biden’s response to the H1N1 Swine Flu, far less lethal than Covid 19, was one of the weakest and worst in the history of fighting epidemics and pandemics. It was pathetic, those involved have said. Joe didn’t have a clue!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2020

Washington Post: “As Trump fights to save his political career, another key part of his life — his business — is also under growing stress. In the next four years, Trump faces payment deadlines for more than $400 million in loans — just as the pandemic robs his businesses of customers and income, according to a Washington Post analysis of Trump’s finances. The bills coming due include loans on his Chicago hotel, his D.C. hotel and his Doral resort, all hit by a double whammy: Trump’s political career slowed their business, then the pandemic ground it down much further.”

“If Trump is reelected, these loan-saddled properties could present a significant conflict of interest: The president will owe enormous sums to banks that his government regulates. National security experts say Trump’s debts to Deutsche Bank, a German company, and foreign deals may constitute security risks if they make him vulnerable to influence by foreign governments. Trump said at a televised town hall event Oct. 15 that his debts are ‘a tiny percentage of my net worth… I’m very under-levered, fortunately… I have a very, very small percentage of debt,” he said.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in a rare unanimous decision, stated that mail-in ballots cannot be thrown out because the signature on the ballot did not match the signature on voter registration records, the Associated Press reports.

“County boards of elections are prohibited from rejecting absentee or mail-in ballots based on signature comparison conducted by county election officials or employees, or as the result of third-party challenges based on signature analysis and comparisons,” the justices wrote.

The ruling is another victory for Democrats who seek to increase voter participation during the pandemic, encouraging states to accept more mail-in ballots to protect voters from the coronavirus.  The Trump campaign and republicans have been fighting such efforts.

France became the seventh nation to top one million coronavirus cases Friday, as a new wave of infections spread through the country and the number of new daily confirmed cases exceeded 40,000 for the first time, the Associated Press reports.

The surge of new cases are stressing the nation’s hospital resources, with 42% of intensive care unit beds filled with coronavirus patients, including 64% in the Paris region.

French President Emmanuel Macron has instituted a curfew in the eight major urban areas around the nation, banning unnecessary travel from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.  The curfew impacts 46 million of France’s 67 million residents.

I find it odd, if not curious, that the moment I hit “send” on my column that’s highly critical of Joe Biden my Wi-Fi service disconnected. Inexplicably, it will be out all day. Never happened before. Probably just a coincidence. I drove to the local store and sent the column .

— Gregg Jarrett (@GreggJarrett) October 23, 2020

Ivan Hunter, a 26-year-old self-proclaimed member of the right-wing nationalist Boogaloo Bois militia, has been charged with rioting for firing at least 13 rounds from an AK-47 into a Minneapolis police station during the protests following the homicide of George Floyd, ABC News reports.

The Texas resident traveled to Minneapolis to sow unrest and stoke violence, the charging documents say.  Hunter was recorded on video firing his weapon into the Third Precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department.

Hunter becomes the third person affiliated with the Boogaloo Bois to be charged in connection with violence in Minneapolis.  Michael Solomon and Benjamin Teeter were previously indicted on charges of conspiracy to provide material support for a foreign terrorist organization.