“Several prominent victims’ rights advocates, including a lawyer who specializes in ‘revenge porn’ litigation, accused Ed Henry on Tuesday of ‘slut-shaming’ his alleged rape victim—and worse—with 15 salacious and explicit photos attached to a court filing seeking to dismiss a disturbing sexual-abuse lawsuit against the disgraced former cable-news anchor and his ex-employer, Fox News. ‘That Defendant Henry would double down on his abusive conduct by engaging in this kind of blatant victim shaming is simply abhorrent,’ Michael J. Willemin, attorney for Henry’s accuser, former Fox News reporter/producer Jennifer Eckhart, wrote in a letter Tuesday to U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, who is overseeing the case. ‘[I]t is obvious that Defendant Henry chose to publicly file such personal and intimate images of Eckhart to humiliate and retaliate against her for her decision to speak out against his sexual abuse.'”

“Eckhart, for her part, told The Daily Beast: ‘Rape is rape, and can never be ‘justified’ or ‘excused.’ The fact that Ed Henry, a married man who is 20 years older than me—with a teenage daughter, no less—released images of me to use as his ‘defense’ for violently raping me should tell America everything they need to know about him. My abuser used his position of power at Fox News to try to manipulate and gather what he knew could be used against me as blackmail'” – Daily Beast.

New York Times: “President Trump and his allies have tried to paint the Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as soft on China, in part by pointing to his son’s business dealings there. Senate Republicans produced a report asserting, among other things, that Mr. Biden’s son Hunter ‘opened a bank account’ with a Chinese businessman, part of what it said were his numerous connections to ‘foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe.'”

“But Mr. Trump’s own business history is filled with overseas financial deals, and some have involved the Chinese state. He spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company. The foreign accounts do not show up on Mr. Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he must list personal assets, because they are held under corporate names. The identities of the financial institutions are not clear. The Chinese account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management L.L.C., which the tax records show paid $188,561 in taxes in China while pursuing licensing deals there from 2013 to 2015.”

“Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani argued on Tuesday that the American public deserved to see reports based off material from Hunter Biden’s laptop ‘even if it isn’t accurate.’ Appearing on AM1100 The Flag, a North Dakota radio show, the former New York City mayor grumbled about social media companies initially restricting access to the Post stories, saying it ‘reminds me of the communist and the Nazis.’ From there, he said the story should be spread regardless of its accuracy. ‘They’ve set up an Iron Curtain so you can’t get out the New York Post story which I happened to know is 100 percent accurate,’ Giuliani declared. ‘But even if it isn’t accurate, the American people are entitled to know it'” – Daily Beast.

New York Times: “The Republican National Committee announced on Tuesday that it entered October with $78.1 million cash on hand, after it spent $36 million more than it had raised in September in its effort to boost President Trump in the final months of the election. Mr. Trump’s campaign committee itself has not yet filed its September report.”

“But the R.N.C. filing with the Federal Election Commission is the third of four Trump-linked entities covering the month of September. Last week, the two joint committees between Mr. Trump and the R.N.C., Trump Victory Committee and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, filed $90.3 million and $20.1 million cash on hand, respectively. The Trump campaign has previously announced that, combined, all four committees have $251.4 million in the bank entering September. That suggests the Trump campaign committee entered the final month of the race with just under $63 million in the bank — likely only a fraction of what his opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., had.”

“Lawyers at Jones Day, which has earned millions as outside counsel to U.S. President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, have donated nearly $90,000 to the campaign committee of Trump’s Democratic rival Joe Biden. Contributions to the Trump campaign by Jones Day lawyers totaled just $50, records show. A Reuters analysis of Federal Election Commission records shows a wide gulf between individual lawyer donations to the candidates, with nearly $29 million going directly to Biden’s campaign and just under $1.75 million to Trump’s between Jan. 1, 2019 and Aug. 31, 2020. Lawyers at several other law firms representing Trump or his campaign also heavily favored Biden. The figures reflect individual giving, not law firm contributions, and they rely on donors’ self-identification by occupation and employer” – Reuters.

CBS News: “Dozens of voters in a heavily Democratic county in Florida and across several states reported receiving emails on Thursday appearing to come from a right-wing group threatening to ‘come after’ them unless they vote for President Trump. But an examination of the messages, now under investigation by state and federal authorities, shows they were sent via servers located overseas, raising questions about their origin amid concerns about voter intimidation just two weeks before Election Day.”

“Democratic voters in Alachua County, Florida, began receiving the email on Tuesday morning, and voters in Alaska and Arizona also reported receiving the message. It appeared to come from the right-wing group The Proud Boys, and showed a ‘from’ address of “info@officialproudboys.com.” The Proud Boys has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights advocacy group. While at first glance the email seems to come from an account under the domain of a website affiliated with The Proud Boys, a review of the source code embedded in seven emails shows the message originated from IP addresses linked to servers located in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Estonia.”

Under a pilot program begun by the Trump Administration in 2017, more than 1,000 children were separated from their parents and held in US custody while their parents were deported.

Now, more than two years after that pilot program ended, NBC News reports that 545 of the children remain in federal custody because their parents cannot be located by the federal government or independent agencies working on the children’s behalf.

This pilot program was the prelude to the court-overturned child separation police implemented in 2018.  Under the 2018 policy, parents and children were separated, but they all remained in US custody.  During the pilot program, the adults were returned to their native country, while the children remained in the US.

…Everyone should compare this terrible Electoral Intrusion with the recent interviews of Sleepy Joe Biden!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2020

As Donald Trump goes around the nation campaigning that Americans shouldn’t be afraid of the coronavirus, the White House has put 31 states in the COVID “Red Zone” because of rising infection rates, the Washington Post reports.

Trump said in campaign events and interviews that people are getting sick about hearing about the pandemic, claiming that the media is covering it to suppress voter turnout.

States earn the “Red Zone” designation by having more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents or at least two coronavirus fatalities per 100,000 residents in the last week.

The 31 states listed are primarily in the South and the Midwest, key areas for Trump supporters.  New “Red Zone” states include the Dakotas, Montana, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Kansas.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told republican Senators during a caucus lunch Tuesday that he warned President Trump against dividing the caucus to push a White House-brokered coronavirus deal before the election, the Associated Press reports.

Although he promised that he would bring any White House proposal to the floor for a vote, McConnell presented an alternative $500 billion package to the Senate, with the first bill brought to the floor today and the second scheduled for tomorrow.

Desperate for a political win prior to the election, Trump has said he wanted a relief bill bigger than the $2.2 trillion proposal backed by Democrats and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.  The White House negotiator, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, has offered a $1.8 trillion deal, lower than what Trump claimed.

Bloomberg White House Correspondent Jennifer Jacobs reports that Biden is looking at Ron Klain as his first choice for White House Chief of Staff. Klain is a long time Democratic party operative who notably coordinated the Obama Administration’s Ebola response in 2013.

This is not a picture of Ron Klain. This is a picture of actor Kevin Spacey portraying Ron Klain in the 2008 HBO film Recount, which depicted Klain’s time working to try to sort out the disputed result in the 2000 presidential election in Florida. I don’t know what Klain looks like in real life. I guess he probably sort of resembles Spacey. And yes that’s Dennis Leary in the background, Spacey’s co-star in the seminal 1993 classic The Ref. Actor Adam LeFevre, the guy who played his brother Gary is also in Recount.

The residents of a Canadian town voted in the last week to change its name from the ominous sounding Asbestos to the more poetic Val-des-Sources (English:  “Valley of the Spring”) to diverge from its history, NPR reports.

Once the site of the largest chrysotile asbestos mine in the world, the Jeffrey Mine, the town decided it was time to disconnect from its connection to the cancer-causing mineral.

“Once upon a time, we have been very proud of that name, but now it’s very difficult because asbestos means a fiber that people are afraid of,” Louise Moisan-Coulombe, the town’s former mayor, told the CBC.

Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes not wearing a mask in the White House after her interview with me. Much more to come. pic.twitter.com/0plZG6a4fH

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2020

Washington Post: “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Senate Republicans on Tuesday that he has warned the White House not to make a big stimulus deal before the election, according to two people familiar with his remarks. McConnell suggested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is not negotiating in good faith with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and any deal they reach could disrupt the Senate’s plans to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court next week.”

“In a Bloomberg interview on Tuesday, Pelosi adamantly denied that she was stringing the White House along and said she wouldn’t be negotiating with the White House if she didn’t want a deal. But McConnell’s remarks, made in a closed-door lunch with Senate Republicans, show the raw political calculations that both parties are dealing with two weeks before the November 3 elections. McConnell’s comments were confirmed by two people familiar with them who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss them.”

Ever the licenser, Donald Trump has now added his name to a line of face masks, a recommended accessory to combat the spread of the coronavirus and one that Trump himself mocks by falsely claiming that 85% of people who wear masks get coronavirus.

The Trump Masks have arrived on time for the Fall season…I have one reserved for you…Hurry up before they are gone…#trump #Masks #MADEinUSA #success #NeverSettle #business #Jobs pic.twitter.com/9XBfoCtTiJ

— Mickael Damelincourt (@mdamelincourt) October 20, 2020

According to a new documentary, the Trump Administration required state governments and other organizations to bid against each other, as if they were on eBay, to purchase personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic, reports Business Insider via MSN.

Instead of making bulk purchases and doling out supplies to states as needed, like a functioning federal government would do in a time of crisis, the Trump Administration helped to drive up the cost of foreign-manufactured PPE, increasing profits for the overseas companies.

“It’s like being on eBay with 50 other states,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is quoted saying at a press briefing on March 31.

The judge hearing the motion by a grand juror in the Breonna Taylor case has issued a ruling allowing that grand juror to speak publicly about deliberations on charges in the case, CNN reports.

According to a statement released through the attorney for the as-yet-unnamed grand juror, the grand jury was not given opportunity to consider other charges against the other officers.  Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron only gave the grand jury instructions to consider the wanton endangerment charges, reportedly stating that the Attorney General told them he would not be able to successfully prosecute charges against other officers or any offenses relating to the homicide of Taylor.

Cameron claimed in a press conference that the grand jury was free to consider all charges against any of the officers involved in the home invasion that led to Taylor’s homicide.  He said “walked them through every homicide offense and also presented all of the information that was available to the grand jury.”

According to President Trump, he wants a coronavirus aid relief package larger than Democrats are proposing but so far, the White House’s chief negotiator, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, has yet to put any such package on the table, Reuters reports.

“I want to do it even bigger than the Democrats,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Tuesday morning.  Mnuchin, however, has not publicly outlined anything more than the $1.8 trillion offer proposed three weeks ago.

The Democrats, lead by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have offered a $2.2 trillion package which includes aid to states and cities struggling under financial shortfalls brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. 

“President Trump trails Democrat Joe Biden by five points in Pennsylvania, a state that was key to Trump’s election in 2016. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone and online survey of Likely Voters in Pennsylvania finds Biden leading Trump 50% to 45%. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and three percent (3%) remain undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Factor in those who haven’t made up their minds yet but are leaning toward one candidate or the other, and Biden leads 50% to 47%” – Rasmussen.