“Campaigns are required to report goods or services purchased at lower than normal charges as contributions. Gaetz’s has not reported any such offerings from the Trump Org. The campaign for a congressional ally of President Donald J. Trump’s paid room rates at the Trump Hotel D.C. that appear well below what was available to the general public. When campaigns pay lower than a normal rate for a good or service, the government requires they declare it as a contribution. In this instance, the candidate has not reported receiving any such contributions from the Trump Org.”

“In its third-quarter 2020 filing made last week with the Federal Elections Commission, Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) campaign reported four disbursements to the Trump Hotel D.C. All were incurred for lodging on Aug. 27, 2020—the final day of the Republican National Convention, which was held in D.C. and they ranged from just $216.20 to $261.47 (totaling $976.87)” – Zach Everson.

Texas Tribune: “When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton decided to break his silence about accusations by his top aides that he had committed crimes including bribery and abuse of office, he turned to a little-known legal outlet called the Southeast Texas Record. In the exclusive interview, he trashed the aides and claimed that before his top deputy resigned, Paxton had planned to put him on leave anyway.”

“The website where that interview was posted has been identified as part of a national network of some 1,300 pay-for-play news websites that publish on-demand coverage for Republican political campaigns and public relations firms. According to The New York Times, those websites, whose names sound like ordinary local news outlets, have received at least $1.7 million from Republican political campaigns and conservative groups. Ian Prior, who promoted the story for the Paxton campaign, denied to The Texas Tribune that the campaign had paid the outlet to run the story — ‘definitive no,’ he said — saying he had merely reached out to set up an interview with an outlet that had already covered the story.”

“Trump is in trouble among men, where he must run up the score to be re-elected, but where today he is effectively tied with Biden. Trump is in trouble among women, where he trails by 19 points. Trump is in trouble among seniors, where he has lost 19 points since Cheddar’s most-recent poll 3 weeks ago. Trump is in trouble among independents, where 3 weeks ago he ran even with Biden but today trails by 16. Trump’s lead is undiminished among Protestants, Evangelicals, NASCAR fans, and gun owners. But Trump has failed to gain ground among middle-class whites, where he and Biden continue to run even” – SurveyUSA’s idiosyncratic write-up of their poll findings.

Marc Thiessen: “Conservatives are rightly outraged by Twitter’s efforts to suppress the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s alleged emails, and the mainstream media’s failure to take the story seriously. Republicans in Congress are right to investigate. And the Republican National Committee is right to file a complaint against Twitter with the Federal Election Commission for censoring the story. But here is what President Trump needs to understand: This election is not going to turn on Hunter Biden. While the story might energize the president’s base, it won’t help him win over voters who are not already supporting his reelection.”

“Americans already know that Hunter Biden was flying around the world cashing in on his father’s name and public office, and that Joe Biden allowed him to do so. How they feel about that is already baked into their votes. Right now, in the midst of a pandemic-induced recession, they care more about their own families than Joe Biden’s family. Unfortunately, the president is talking nonstop about the Biden family, calling it a “criminal enterprise.” That is not the closing argument Trump needs to make before Election Day. His closing argument should be: I will restore the strong economy you loved before the pandemic hit, and Biden will ruin it with massive tax increases and socialist spending.”

“Hours after Rudy Giuliani publicly claimed that he’d turned over a computer belonging to Hunter Biden that contained ‘numerous pictures of underage girls’ to the Delaware State Police, Delaware authorities punted the matter to the FBI, citing ‘credibility’ questions. ‘In light of ongoing questions about the credibility of these claims and multiple reports that the FBI is investigating their veracity, law enforcement is referring this matter to the FBI,’ the Delaware Department of Justice told The Daily Beast in a statement about the Trump lawyer’s latest allegation” – Daily Beast.

Reuters: “A U.S. federal appeals court on Tuesday left in place North Carolina’s plan for counting absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day, dealing a setback to President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. In a 12-3 decision, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a bid to halt the North Carolina State Board of Elections from tallying ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 that arrive before Nov. 12. The Trump campaign, the North Carolina Republican Party, and others had sued over the timetable, saying that it violated the state’s election code. ‘All ballots must still be mailed on or before Election Day,’ Circuit Judge James Wynn wrote for the court. ‘The change is simply an extension from three to nine days after Election Day for a timely ballot to be received and counted. That is all.’ The decision upheld an Oct. 14 decision by U.S. District Judge William Osteen in Greensboro, who said he did not want to cause ‘judicially created confusion’ by changing the rules weeks before the election.”

“With less than two weeks until the Nov. 3 election, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is leading President Donald Trump by 7 percentage points in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, according to a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll. Nearly half (49%) of likely Pennsylvania voters said they support Biden, while 42% said they support Trump, the poll released Wednesday found” – USA Today.

Axios: “More than one-third of Americans think it’s possible that elites in Hollywood, government and the media ‘are secretly engaging in large scale child trafficking and abuse,’ according to new polling for a U.K.-based anti-racism advocacy group reviewed by Axios. The big picture: New findings by the group HOPE not Hate show 1 in 10 Americans say they are at least ‘soft’ supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement and suggest that distrust in U.S. political systems could fuel further unrest in a fraught election year.”

“1 in 4 agree it would be ‘perfectly acceptable’ for President Trump to refuse to accept the election results if they’re close. QAnon proponents tend to support Trump, and they’ve been pushing a narrative that voting by mail is a scheme by Democrats to steal the election. The findings about Americans’ openness to conspiracy theories about child trafficking and abuse suggest that a large subset of Americans may believe in some of the major conspiracies of QAnon even if they don’t embrace the group by name.”

“This time last year, shoppers on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile were waiting for Louis Vuitton to debut its whimsical holiday window decorations. Now those same windows are hidden behind a wall of wood panels painted bright orange. While still open for shoppers, stores like Gucci, H&M and Nordstrom are also boarded up after looters targeted the city’s famed retail district in the spring and summer, when protests gripped more than 100 U.S. cities.”

“As security experts warn that the U.S. presidential election could spark renewed civil unrest, those stores remain clad in plywood as retailers seek to keep property and employees safe in the event street violence flares anew. The Magnificent Mile shop was broken into and robbed during early morning mayhem that erupted after the police shooting of a young Black man in August. Aon Plc, the world’s largest insurance broker, told Reuters the majority of retailer clients it surveyed are considering boarding up stores because they are worried about looting around the election. Aon executive MaryAnne Burke said about 70% of these retailer clients did so during protests in May and June” – Reuters.

New York Times: “President Trump held a rally in Georgia on Friday, 18 days before the November general election. It wasn’t a good sign for him. That Mr. Trump is still campaigning in what should be a safely Republican state — and in others that should be solidly in his column like Iowa and Ohio — is evidence to many Democrats that Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s polling lead in the presidential race is solid and durable. Mr. Trump spent Monday in Arizona, too, a state that was once reliably Republican but where his unpopularity has helped make Mr. Biden competitive.”

“For some Democrats, Mr. Trump’s attention to red states is also a sign of something else — something few in the party want to discuss out loud, given their scars from Mr. Trump’s surprise victory in 2016. It’s an indication that Mr. Biden could pull off a landslide in November, achieving an ambitious and rare electoral blowout that some Democrats think is necessary to quell any doubts — or disputes by Mr. Trump — that Mr. Biden won the election. On one level, such a scenario is entirely plausible based on the weeks and the breadth of public polls that show Mr. Biden with leads or edges in key states. But this possibility runs headlong into the political difficulties of pulling off such a win, and perhaps even more, the psychological hurdles for Democrats to entertain the idea. Many think that Mr. Trump, having pulled off a stunning win before, could do it again, even if there are differences from 2016 that hurt his chances.”

In only the second mission of its kind, NASA has sent a craft to intercept and touch an near-Earth asteroid, but this time, the craft will turn samples of the surface of the Bennu asteroid, CNN reports.

The back-away burn is complete 🛑✅ I'm now moving to a safe distance away from Bennu. pic.twitter.com/bXk2ufSneS

— NASA's OSIRIS-REx (@OSIRISREx) October 20, 2020

The NASA craft, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, about the size of a minivan, approached the Bennu asteroid and reached out to touch the surface of the asteroid and take a sample of the surface material, collecting a sample weighing between 2 ounces and 2 kilograms.

Narrated by actor Sam Elliott, a one-minute ad ran by the Biden campaign during the first game of the World Series focuses on uniting America and erasing the political divides.

“There is only one America,” the iconic voice of Elliott says.  “No Democratic rivers.  No republican mountains.  Just this great land and all that’s possible on it.”

“There is so much we can do if we choose to take on problems and not each other,” Elliott continues, “and if we choose a president who brings out our best.”

“Joe Biden doesn’t need everyone in this country to always agree, just to agree we all love this country.”

USA Today, the first national newspaper founded in in 1982, issued its first presidential endorsement Tuesday, urging voters to elect Joe Biden to become the 46th President of the United States in an editorial titled, “Elect Joe Biden. Reject Donald Trump.”

Newspapers from the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Los Angeles Times, The Orlando Sentinel, The Houston Chronicle, The Seattle Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune are among the 62 daily newspapers endorsing Biden to date.  The New York Times ran a 12-page broadsheet endorsement of Biden this weekend.

Only two daily papers, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, owned by republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, and the Santa Barbara News-Press have endorsed Trump.

At a rally at a regional airport in Erie, Pennsylvania, one of many battleground states Donald Trump needs to win to secure reelection in most scenarios, Trump told a crowd of approximately 8,000 largely maskless fans that he needs a second term to repair the US economy which his lack of leadership in dealing with the coronavirus destroyed, Reuters reports.

“This is an election between the Trump super recovery, which is happening right now, and a Biden depression,” Trump declared without mentioning that the “recovery” became necessary because of his bungling of the federal response to the coronavirus.

Fox 9: “Minnesota’s Attorney General is investigating a company believed to be recruiting military veterans to serve as private security for the upcoming Nov. 3 election, his office announced Tuesday. According to the Attorney General’s office, as a rule, it does not unveil investigations in progress. However, AG Keith Ellison’s office announced the investigation due to ‘heightened public interest’ and the proximity to Election Day.”

“According to Ellison’s office, the investigation is into Franklin, Tennessee-based Atlas Aegis. The Attorney General says he has made a formal request for information of the company, to which it is legally required to reply. The Attorney General’s office is trying to understand who is hiring the private security, what their role will be near polling places, how they will be trained and how they will meet requirements for licenses and permits in Minnesota. Ellison said Minnesota and federal law states, ‘no one may interfere with or intimidate a voter at a polling place, and no one may operate private armed forces in our state,’ and that private security at polling places would violate that law.”

“Senior officials throughout various departments and agencies of the Trump administration tell CNN they are alarmed at White House pressure to grant what would essentially be a no-bid contract to lease the Department of Defense’s mid-band spectrum — premium real estate for the booming and lucrative 5G market — to Rivada Networks, a company in which prominent Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump have investments.”

“The pressure campaign to fast track Rivada’s ‘Request for Proposal’ (RFP) by using authorities that would preclude a competitive bidding process intensified in September, and has been led by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was acting at Trump’s behest, sources with knowledge tell CNN. To push his case, Meadows has sometimes used as his proxy an individual identified by sources in the telecommunications industry as a top financial management official in the US Army. Sources tell CNN that Trump was encouraged to help Rivada by Fox News commentator and veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove, a lobbyist for, and investor in, Rivada” – CNN.

Washington Post: “Trump and Pence were meant to do a signature ’60 Minutes’ walk-and-talk portion of the interview together, but after cutting off his sit-down with Stahl, the president did not return for that segment. A person at CBS familiar with the interview said the image of the maskless Stahl that Trump tweeted was taken immediately following the interview with the CBS team (who had all been tested.) Lesley had a mask on leading into the interviews as appropriate.”

“The person with CBS declined to comment more broadly on what happened during the interview but did confirm that Trump did not do the walk with Pence. According to another person with knowledge of what happened, Trump was unhappy that Stahl asked him tough questions regarding his rhetoric about Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), his rally crowd sizes, his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and why he fights with Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease doctor. She also told him during the interview that allegations about Hunter Biden were not verified. When Trump first walked in, Stahl looked at him and said, ‘Are you ready for a tough interview?’ About half the interview was focused on the coronavirus. The president believes ’60 Minutes’ will cut the interview in an unflattering way and has been talking all afternoon about how to preempt the footage, said the person, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about what happened. ‘The interview was not that bad,’ a White House staffer said. ‘It wasn’t a bad interview. She just had a tone he didn’t like.'”