NBC News: “There are still years, potentially decades, that Obama could serve his country and build an even more lasting legacy — one that he might have set aside in his desire to become president. Should Obama re-enter the Senate, more than a decade after he left, he’d have the chance to be the workhorse that his former rival-turned-colleague Hillary Clinton became after she crossed over from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. A legislative world without the filibuster — as Obama recently endorsed — would be a far different one from what he’d left behind as president. A Democratic majority in Congress could actually advance the legislation he was unable to push through during his two terms. A returning Sen. Barack Obama would have a hand in crafting the immigration reform that the country requires, potentially moving beyond the package that nearly passed Congress early in his second term.”

“He could write and lobby for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to become the law of the land, rather than an executive order on shaky legal ground. With his legal mind and view of racial justice, Obama could tackle recrafting the Voting Rights Act, which was gutted in his second term, which would be an even finer tribute to the late Rep. John Lewis than his incredible eulogy. And he could finally make good on his promise after the Sandy Hook massacre to institute the kind of gun control legislation that died an ignoble death in the Senate in 2013. Plus, can you imagine Obama working in the Senate alongside his 2012 rival, Mitt Romney? The mind reels.”

Texas Tribune: “A second whistleblower has been fired from the Texas attorney general’s office after reporting his boss, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, to law enforcement for crimes including bribery and abuse of office, according to a former senior official with the agency who had knowledge about the firing but did not want to be named for fear of legal repercussions. Blake Brickman, who had served as deputy attorney general for policy and strategy initiatives for less than a year, was fired Tuesday, the official said. Lacey Mase, the deputy attorney general for administration, was also fired Tuesday, The Texas Tribune reported earlier this week. ‘It was not voluntary,’ Mase said of her departure from the office, but declined to comment further.”

Russian hackers have penetrated into state and local election systems, leaving many US national security officials highly concerned about potential chaos Russians plan to sow if the election is contested, the New York Times reports.

The intrusions by the Russians far outweigh the threat posed by Iranians, as described by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe in a press briefing Wednesday night.  Much of the information used in the email spoofing campaign by Iran are available through public records, like voter registration rolls or even commercial email lists.

“Mitch McConnell, the 78-year-old Senate Majority Leader currently running for reelection, is denying any health issues despite photos showing his hand bandaged and severely discolored. On Wednesday, photos went viral of McConnell bending down to pick up a dropped face mask on Capitol Hill the day prior, revealing his right hand to be much darker than the rest of his body and that his thumb is bandaged. McConnell’s office did not respond to numerous requests for comment from BuzzFeed News about the health of the top Senate Republican, who is up for reelection in Kentucky in just under two weeks. However, when asked by a reporter on Thursday about his health and the concerning photos of his hand, McConnell denied there was an issue.”

“‘Do you have some kind of health issue?’ asked Politico reporter John Bresnahan. ‘Everyone been’s talking about your hands.’ ‘I’ve been worried about your health, Bres. How are you feeling?” replied McConnell, using the reporter’s nickname” – BuzzFeed News.

LA Times: “Melissa Francis, regularly seen on the popular Fox News midday talk show ‘Outnumbered,’ has been off the air for two weeks and is probably at the end of her six-year run at the network, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment and requested anonymity. Francis, 47 has not been seen on the program since Oct. 7. A Fox News representative did not comment on her status, saying only that she is still an employee and its daytime programming is being revamped.”

“‘Fox News Media regularly considers programming changes, including to its daytime lineup, and will launch new formats as appropriate after the election,’ the representative said in a statement. ‘These changes are being made independent of any other ongoing matter.’ However, one person close to Francis says she has been fired. Francis had been working at Fox News without a contract for nearly a year. She had filed a gender-based pay discrimination claim against the company that has been in arbitration, according to one person familiar with the proceedings. The complaint said Francis was underpaid compared with her male colleagues. A Fox News representative would not comment on the matter, saying it was confidential.”

Get ready for tonight’s second and (thankfully) final Presidential debate of the 2020 cycle.  Have a bottle of your favorite spirit nearby (or your alternative intoxicating substance) and your bingo card at hand.

Tonight’s debate, scheduled for six 15-minute segments to be moderated by Kristen Welker, White House correspondent for NBC News, will start at 9 p.m. ET from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.  It will run approximately 90 minutes and be aired on all three networks and various cable news outlets.

At one podium:  Democratic Presidential nominee 77-year-old Joe Biden, the Scranton Scrapper, 6 feet tall even and 190 pounds.

At the other:  incumbent republican candidate 74-year-old Donald Trump, the Megalomaniac from Manhattan, reported to be 6’3″ tall (with lifts) and a morbidly obese 244 pounds (reportedly).

You’ll be able to watch it live here on NatZero, along with our traditional stellar commentary.  (Now’s a good time to mention you can help support these efforts through the PayPal link above the comments section.  Every little bit helps and as always, we thank you for your support.)

Here are some things to look for during the debate:

Trump’s mic will be shut off during Biden’s opening statements, but his mouth won’t be.  Trump whined and complained that the moderators will cut off the microphone when the opponent is making his two-minute opening statement each round.  This infuriated Trump,

“On what was billed as a Trump campaign pre-debate call, officials went in-depth about the Hunter Biden laptop allegations, asking reporters if they’ve written on that story instead of answering their questions. At one point during Q&A a reporter asked about debate prep – something the call was supposed to be about. Ambassador Ric Grenell asked if she’d written on Hunter’s emails. She noted she covers Trump, not Biden, prompting a back and forth. Grenell said, ‘I’m speaking. Don’t be homophobic'” – CBS News White House producer Sarah Cook via Twitter (lightly edited for clarity).

Bloomberg: “Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign said he’s ready for a confrontation at Thursday’s debate with President Donald Trump as the incumbent says he will attempt to steer the discussion to allegations of corruption against Hunter Biden. ‘Every time he does that all he’s doing is reinforcing what we’ve said all along: He’s acknowledging he has no case for a second term; he has no answers to the failures of the last four years and no plans or vision for the next four,’ Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, said in a call with reporters.”

“The Trump campaign planned a similar call with reporters later Thursday. At rallies and in interviews before the debate, Trump has made clear that he intends to focus the forum on airing allegations that Hunter Biden engaged in corrupt practices in Ukraine and China – claims that the president says the media is ignoring. The 90-minute debate will be one of the last potential turning points of the 2020 election, as Biden and Trump seek to improve their performances at 9 p.m. New York time after what political consultants from both parties say was a disastrous first meeting.”

“A man was arrested in Kannapolis with a van full of guns and explosives with plans to carry out an act of terrorism, including trying to assassinate Joe Biden. An order filed in federal court earlier this month outlines the plans by a man identified as Alexander Hillel Treisman, who also used the alias Alexander S. Theiss. In the order, a federal magistrate judge outlined the reasons why Treisman should continue to be held in jail on child pornography charges.”

“Although Treisman currently faces child pornography charges, the order details a list of factors related to the defendant’s plans for a possible act of terror as grounds he should remain in custody. According to the order, Treisman was arrested in late May, after employees at a bank in Kannapolis called police to investigate a white van that had been left in the parking lot” – WBTV.

A new study sponsored by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation found that the United States and the United Kingdom top excess mortality rates due to COVID-19.

The study notes that COVID-19 is now the third-highest cause of death in the United States, behind heart disease and cancer, while in other peer countries (Australia, Austria, Germany, and Japan) the disease has not risen into the top ten.

In its peer group, only Belgium and the UK have had a higher case-count per capita.  The US ranks eighth in the world in COVID fatalities per capita among nations with more than 250,000 in population.

The US has had 840 “excess deaths” per 100,000 population since the coronavirus pandemic hit, the highest in the world.  The UK has had 763.  The gap is likely to get larger given the rapid spike in the number of cases in the US over the last month, combined with a lack of national guidelines.

“While senior Trump administration officials said this week that Iran has been actively interfering in the presidential election, many intelligence officials said they remained far more concerned about Russia, which has in recent days hacked into state and local computer networks in breaches that could allow Moscow broader access to American voting infrastructure.”

“There is no evidence that the Russians have changed any vote tallies or voter registration information, officials said. They added that the Russian-backed hackers had penetrated the computer networks without taking further action, as they did in 2016. But American officials expect that if the presidential race is not called on election night, Russian groups could use their knowledge of local computer systems to deface websites, release nonpublic information or take similar steps that could sow chaos and doubts about the integrity of the results, according to American officials briefed on the intelligence” – New York Times.

“Based on an update we’ll be releasing later today, we’re now projecting total turnout in the presidential race to be 154 million, with an 80th percentile range between 144 million and 165 million. In 2016, turnout was 137 million, by comparison. The primary ingredient in our turnout estimate is polls that ask people whether they’re more or less enthusiastic about voting than usual, and those polls are showing record levels of enthusiasm” – FiveThirtyEight editor Nate Silver.

Newsweek: “On Election Night, the campaign to re-elect Republican President Donald Trump will be holding a party at the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C., just blocks away from the White House, according to a campaign fundraising email. ‘I’ve arranged with my team to fly one of my BEST SUPPORTERS to Washington, DC to join Team Trump at the Election Night Party in my favorite hotel,’ the email read.”

“The non-partisan ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) found out that rooms in the hotel are completely booked for November 2 and 3, the day before Election Day and the day of. CREW has said the hotel is the most common venue for Trump’s political events, raising $3.2 million from political groups since Trump announced his intention to run for president in 2015. The president himself has made appearances at the hotel 27 times during his presidency.”

“In 2016, Donald J. Trump confounded the polls in part by generating an unanticipated level of enthusiasm and turnout from a group that had grown increasingly apathetic about elections: white voters without college degrees. But in 2020, Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. face a drastically changed electorate. The cohort of non-college-educated white voters — who gave Mr. Trump just enough of a margin to win the election in 2016 — has been in a long-term decline, while both minority voters and white college-educated voters have steadily increased.”

“The decline, a demographic glacier driven largely by aging, has continued since 2016. The number of voting-age white Americans without college degrees has dropped by more than five million in the past four years, while the number of minority voters and college-educated white voters has collectively increased by more than 13 million in the same period. In key swing states, the changes far outstrip Mr. Trump’s narrow 2016 margins” – New York Times.

Bloomberg: “New York’s East River is set to become the testing ground for a technology that generates electricity from the tides. Verdant Power, a New York-based marine energy technology company, is installing three small underwater turbines in the river Thursday that will feed power to Consolidated Edison Inc.’s grid. Marine energy has been around for years, but its adoption been stymied by high costs and mechanical issues.”

“Verdant’s system, big enough to power a handful of homes, is expected to showcase the technology as the company works on a large, commercial project in the U.K. that may be installed in 2023. The turbines have five-meter (16-foot) rotors, half the size of what Verdant is planning for the U.K. project, with 35 kilowatts of capacity each, about four times bigger than a typical U.S. residential rooftop solar system. ‘We’re demonstrating that we have a system that’s reliable and affordable,’ Trey Taylor, Verdant’s chief commercial officer, said in an interview.”

“In the presidential race, Republican President Donald Trump received 51%, leading Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden by 8 points. 3% went to Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen. 4% answered other or undecided. In the heated U.S. Senate race, incumbent Republican Sen. Steve Daines leads challenger Gov. Steve Bullock by 1 point, 48% to 47%, with 5% undecided. The U.S. House race proves to be just as close, with Kathleen Williams and Matt Rosendale tied at 46% with a higher percent of respondents undecided at 8%” – NBC Montana.

AP: “Macy’s said Santa Claus won’t be greeting kids at its flagship New York store this year due to the coronavirus, interrupting a holiday tradition started nearly 160 years ago. More than a quarter of a million people come to see Santa at Macy’s in New York each year, the company said, making it hard to create a safe environment during a pandemic. Before taking a picture with the jolly old man, crowds walk in tight quarters through a maze-like Santaland that’s filled with Christmas trees, running toy trains and elves in green costumes. Santa also won’t be showing up at its Chicago and San Francisco stores, which have similar Santalands. But he will still appear at the end of the televised Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, the company said.”

“With less than two weeks until Election Day, likely voters support former Vice President Joe Biden over President Donald Trump 51 – 41 percent in a Quinnipiac University national poll. This is the third national survey among likely voters since September that shows Biden with a 10-point lead, as Biden led Trump 52 – 42 percent on both September 2nd and September 23rd. Among likely voters who say they will vote in person on Election Day, about two-thirds (65 percent) say they back Trump, while 28 percent support Biden. Among likely voters who have voted or plan on voting by mail or absentee ballot, roughly 7 in 10 (69 percent) say they are supporting Biden, while 21 percent support Trump. For likely voters who have or plan to cast their ballot at an early voting location, a majority (57 percent) support Biden and just over one-third (35 percent) support Trump” – QU Polls.

“President Trump, who won Kansas by more than 20 percentage points four years ago, maintains only a single-digit lead in the state, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Thursday, an erosion of support that typifies his struggles in nearly every corner of the country as he fights for a second term. With the clock ticking down before Election Day, the president leads Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, by seven percentage points, 48 to 41, among likely voters in a traditionally conservative state.”

“The abandonment of Mr. Trump by some voters whom Republicans could once rely on unfailingly has filtered down to the state’s Senate race, where the Democratic nominee, Barbara Bollier, trails the Republican, Roger Marshall, by just four percentage points, 46 to 42” – New York Times.

It’s time to defund @NPR. This is appalling. #DefundNPR https://t.co/wFbY5lGGTG

— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) October 22, 2020