A federal judge ordered on Friday ordered the White House Counsel’s Office to get a statement from President Trump regarding his tweeted order to declassify all records, without redactions, relating to 2016 Russian interference, Politico reports.

News outlets have sued, using the Freedom of Information Act, to gain access to unredacted records, including the Mueller Report.  Justice Department officials have argued that Trump’s statement was not meant to be an order, although Trump has used his personal Twitter account to announce policy and the hiring/firing of Administration staff.

I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions! https://t.co/GgnHh9GOiq

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

The Hill has a pretty quirky profanity filter in their Disqus configuration. The usual suspects of words are blocked – the f-word, terms for both male and female anatomy, racial slurs, etc – but some plural and derivates are not – while others inexplicably are. Here’s a handy – though not all-encompassing – guide to what you can and cannot say there.

Donald Trump can claim another record for his legacy:  he’s the president who presided over the largest US federal annual deficit in history.

According to data released jointly by the White House and the Treasury Department, the US annual deficit for fiscal year 2020, which ended September 30th, tripled to $3.1 trillion, the Washington Post reports.

Since Trump took office in 2017, he’s overseen a five-fold increase in the annual deficit, which was $660 billion in President Barack Obama’s last year in office. 

Kim Klacik, the Black Maryland republican vying for Maryland’s 7th Congressional District seat once held by the late Elijah Cummings, raised $6.4 million in the last quarter thanks to social media exposure boosted by Donald Trump, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Incumbent Democratic Congressman Kweisi Mfume, who won a special election in April to finish out Cummings’ term by defeating Klacik by a 74%-25% margin, raised just $184,349 in the last quarter.

Klacik is a community organizer who does not live in the district she’s campaigning to represent.  A college dropout, Klacik claims to run a non-profit organization called “Potential Me,” but the organization has filed only one tax return since 2013.

The heavily-Democratic district is in no risk of flipping red in the coming election.  MD-7 encompasses large areas of Baltimore City, as well as significant areas of the affluent Baltimore and Howard Counties.

Huffington Post: “Over the summer, Embrace, a domestic violence organization in northwestern Wisconsin, decided to hang Black Lives Matter signs at its four locations. In September, [Embrace Director Katie] Bement said, she began receiving emails from local law enforcement who were disturbed by the signs, interpreting them as anti-police. Around the same time, mass protests had erupted in Wisconsin over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. After some private back-and-forths, Embrace issued a formal statement online to explain its support for Black Lives Matter”

“Eight days after Embrace’s statement was posted online, Barron County voted to strip the organization of $25,000 in funding for 2021. The county’s director of health and human services resigned from Embrace’s board of directors. Since then, a majority of the 17 law enforcement agencies that work with Embrace have indicated that they will no longer partner with the domestic violence organization, including all law enforcement in Washburn County. That means women who call the police for help, for instance, may not be referred to Embrace for help with safety planning, counseling and support.”

The preliminary findings of a controlled World Health Organization study finds that the drug Remdesivir has no impact on hospitalized COVID patients, the Associated Press reports.

While the study has not yet been peer-reviewed, the data were posted on a website that allows researchers to share their findings.  The study should not be viewed as contradicting earlier studies that show benefits from Remdesivir, but instead should be seen as additional information in the search for a treatment, the WHO stated.

New York Times: “The reliably Republican state of Alaska has soured on President Trump’s job performance, but Republicans still lead the state’s races for president, Senate and U.S. House, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Friday. Over all, Mr. Trump leads Joe Biden, 45 percent to 39 percent, with 8 percent supporting the Libertarian candidate, Jo Jorgensen. Similarly, Dan Sullivan, the incumbent Republican senator, leads the Democratic nominee, Al Gross, by 46 to 39, with 10 percent backing the Alaska Independence candidate, John Howe. In a rematch of 2018’s House race, the Republican Don Young, the longest-serving member of Congress, leads the Democratic nominee, Alyse Galvin, 49 percent to 41 percent — about the same margin as his seven-point win two years ago.”

“Even though the commission canceled the in-person debate that could have happened tonight, one occurred anyway, and President Trump soundly defeated NBC’s Savannah Guthrie in her role as debate opponent and Joe Biden surrogate. President Trump masterfully handled Guthrie’s attacks and interacted warmly and effectively with the voters in the room” – Statement from Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh.

Miami New Times: “Paulette Dale, a registered Republican who’s leaning toward voting for Trump’s challenger Joe Biden, took the microphone to ask the president a question about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the policy that allows young undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. But first, she offered Trump a compliment that left him beaming. ‘I have to say, you have a great smile,’ Dale told the president. ‘You’re so handsome when you smile.’ Her remarks lit up the internet — within moments, a fake Paulette Dale account emerged on Twitter, and her observation became an instant meme. Some television viewers noted Dale’s likeness to actress Allison Janney, betting that Saturday Night Live will re-enact the moment this weekend.”

“But despite her complimentary words, Dale wants it known that she does not actually like Trump. New Times caught up with Dale on her way home from the town hall — and she made it clear that she is no fan of 45. ‘I wish he would smile more and talk less,’ she quipped. Asked to elaborate, Dale said the president ‘steps in it every time he opens his mouth.’ ‘I think the man has a nice smile. However, I’m not a fan,’ she further clarified.”

pic.twitter.com/TV2PCsRMLb

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) October 16, 2020

“There are multiple coronavirus cases among the staff of Southlake’s Gateway Church, less than two weeks after the head pastor was in attendance at the now-infamous Rose Garden ceremony at the White House, a church spokesman confirmed Thursday.”

“A few isolated cases have impacted the more than 850 part-time and full-time employees, Lawrence Swicegood said in an email. Though he didn’t disclose how many cases there have been, he noted, ‘The confirmed cases go up and down daily.’ He didn’t say whether any of the workers with COVID came into contact with Senior Pastor Robert Morris, who has continued to preach following the Rose Garden event where at least a dozen attendees later tested positive. But he stated the pastor has tested negative. Morris has been tested on two occasions since the Sept. 26 Rose Garden event, including once this week, and tested negative both times, according to Swicegood, the director of Gateway Media. He hasn’t exhibited COVID symptoms, he said, and has been taking his temperature regularly” – Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Cue a Trump meltdown.

In a metric Trump believes is the sign of true momentum, the ratings for Thursday night’s dueling town halls are in, and Trump lost.

Reported by TheWrap, Nielsen overnights show that Biden got 12.7 million viewers in the 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET timeslot on ABC, versus just 10.4 million for Trump on NBC.

Mainer News: “Sen. Susan Collins is financially supporting the state legislative campaigns of two fellow Maine Republicans who fervently believe in QAnon, the perverse conspiracy theory whose adherents are considered a domestic terror threat by the FBI. In recent days, Facebook and YouTube have announced actions to curb the spread of QAnon content due to mounting fears that its followers — who deify President Trump and believe his enemies are a global cabal of pedophilic Satanists — will engage in violence before or after Election Day.”

“Kevin Bushey and Brian Redmond, the QAnon believers supported by Collins, are both military veterans who eagerly anticipate a political bloodbath will soon erupt nationwide, ultimately leading to arrests, military trials, and ‘God-declared executions’ for ‘traitors’ like top Democratic politicians and donors, socialists, Planned Parenthood, BLM and Sunrise Movement activists.”

“The Trump campaign is filled with internal blaming and pre-spinning of a potential loss, accelerating a dire mood that’s driven by a daily barrage of bleak headlines, campaign and White House officials tell me. ‘A lot of this is the president himself,’ one adviser said. ‘You can’t heal a patient who doesn’t want to take the diagnosis'” Axios reports.

“In weekly pep talks, Stepien tells staff members why they shouldn’t pay attention to the perennially horrible public polls — and how they can ‘win the week’ and the campaign. But in other private conversations, described by multiple sources, Stepien can seem darkly pessimistic. He likens the campaign to an airplane flying through turbulence, saying: ‘It’s our job to safely land the plane.’ Three sources who have heard Stepien use variations of the airplane analogy say they sensed he was deeply, perhaps irretrievably pessimistic about the state of the race. Trump can still win. But make no mistake: Even his most loyal supporters, including those paid to believe, keep telling us he’s toast — and could bring Republican control of the Senate down with him. Stepien’s critics say he is in CYA mode, refusing to make tough decisions that might incur Trump’s wrath while setting up excuses for what polls suggest could be a shellacking by Joe Biden.”

Noah Feldman: “Claiming election fraud and refusing to accept a clear loss would precipitate a constitutional crisis on a scale not seen since the Civil War. Fortunately, Trump can’t do it alone. He would need the collusion of hundreds, maybe thousands of other people in the government, from poll officials to state legislators to members of Congress. If that happens, our democracy will not just be under threat from an irresponsible leader. It will be on the edge of collapse. This possibility is vanishingly small.”

“Trump could be bluffing, of course — the market appears to think so, or else it must be pricing the costs of constitutional crisis at something near zero, which can’t be right. Regardless, the problem is that we can’t be sure Trump is bluffing. At the same time, it’s important to realize that while Trump can threaten not to leave, he can’t actually attempt it without a lot of other people taking part. That’s true under all the possible scenarios in which Trump might try to stay.”

“The New York Post’s Opinion Editor Sohrab Ahmari says the New York Post has been ‘completely transparent about the providence’ of the Biden scandal story, explaining how they came about the damning information. It comes as the New York Post released an expose detailing links between Joe Biden and his son who was paid at least $50,000 a month to sit on the board of a Ukrainian energy company who allegedly set up a meeting with the Vice President.”

“‘A laptop repair shop owner got in touch a while ago with Mr Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer with information that he had gotten hold of a laptop which appeared to belong to Hunter Biden,’ Mr Ahmari told Sky News. ‘He was alarmed by things that he had found on this laptop … he shared it with Mr Giuliani’s lawyer, eventually we got wind that this laptop’s hard drive existed and we asked Mr Giuliani for it and he turned it over to us'” – Sky News Australia.

AP: “The overwhelming majority of voters believe the nation is deeply divided over its most important values, and many have doubts about the health of the democracy itself. And supporters of President Donald Trump and Joe Biden alike think the opposing candidate will make things even worse if elected, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Overall, 85% of registered voters describe Americans as being greatly divided in their values, and only 15% say that democracy in the United States is working extremely or very well. The poll shows voters overall are especially pessimistic about the impact of Trump’s reelection: 65% say divisions would worsen if the Republican president were reelected, a number that includes a quarter of his supporters.”

Polls numbers are looking very strong. Big crowds, great enthusiasm. Massive RED WAVE coming!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2020

“American voters who remain undecided about the upcoming presidential election are weighing their dislike of President Donald Trump against their concern about Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s policies, longtime Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz told CNBC on Friday. ‘They are nervous about Trump’s persona and they are nervous about Joe Biden’s policies, and that’s what is holding them back,’ Luntz said on ‘Squawk Box.’ ‘It’s not that they can’t see a difference between the two candidates. They see a tremendous difference.’ But with 18 days until the Nov. 3 election, Luntz said the task before voters is making up their mind about which of those differences is most important: ‘The fact they really don’t like Donald Trump as a person or they are really scared about what Joe Biden might do if he became president?'” – CNBC.

WHNT: “A recent New York Times and Associated Press report detailed less than one-third of Tommy Tuberville Foundation funds left the organization and ended up in the hands of veterans. Tuberville’s campaign denies this and claims the IRS reporting documents do not show the full picture. Tax documents show Tuberville held golf tournaments which paid for themselves. In 2017 and 2018 the foundation reported profits exceeding $40,000 with expenses/distributions to veterans never exceeding $5,000. Tuberville has campaigned frequently on veteran issues. Tuberville says his salary will go to veterans. His father stormed the beaches of Normandy.”

“Senator Doug Jones was quick to respond to the report. ‘Maybe the veterans got short changed because Tommy wanted to run for governor or the senate,’ said Senator Jones. He added, ‘This is not public service. He is not a public servant. This is just someone that’s doing this for his own benefit. He’s the swamp that’s taking care of it itself.'”