“A federal judge has upheld a Minnesota state court agreement that allows the counting of absentee ballots received up to seven days after Election Day. Republicans had asked U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel to block the seven-day extension that said ballots postmarked on or before Election Day must be counted. Brasel ruled late Sunday night that the plaintiffs in the case — state Rep. Eric Lucero and another Republican who serves as an elector in the presidential election — don’t have standing and denied their motion for a preliminary injunction. She said giving voters conflicting information after absentee ballots have gone out would create confusion” – AP.

Roberta McCain, the mother of Senator and war hero John McCain, has died at the age of 108, Politico reports.

Born Roberta Wright, she eloped with John McCain, Jr. in defiance of her family, after he temporarily went AWOL from his ship to marry her.  She and her twin sister, who lived to be 99 years old, were active in politics into their 90s.

Besides Senator McCain, Roberta McCain had two other children, a daughter who predeceased her and a son, Joe.

Bloomberg: “Foxconn Technology Group’s request for tax credits from Wisconsin for a factory there was rejected by the state, which said the electronics manufacturer fell far short of the promises it made three years ago for the proposed $10 billion plant. In a letter to the company Monday, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation wrote that Foxconn isn’t producing the large-sized TV display panels outlined in the original contract, hadn’t invested the pledged amount in the plant and failed to employ even the minimum number of people needed to get subsidies.”

“The decision is a blow to Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which announced the high-profile deal in July 2017 with U.S. President Donald Trump. The leading iPhone manufacturer promised to bring 13,000 factory jobs to Wisconsin in exchange for billions in government subsidies. At a ground-breaking in June 2018, Trump touted the proposed factory as ‘the Eighth Wonder of the World.’ Under the deal, Foxconn was required to invest $3.3 billion and create 2,080 full-time jobs by the end of 2019, the state agency said. Instead, the manufacturer employed fewer than the minimum required 520 employees and invested roughly $300 million, according to the agency’s review. Foxconn’s ‘activities are smaller in scale and economic impact to the region and the State of Wisconsin’ than those projected when the plant was initially approved, the state agency said in its letter.”

So Biden is coughing and hacking and playing “fingers” with his mask, all over the place, and the Fake News doesn’t want to even think about discussing it. “Journalism” has reached the all time low in history. Sadly, Lamestream knows this and doesn’t even care!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2020

The European Union agreed to institute sanctions against two European neighbors:  Russia, for the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko for election misconduct and attacking protesters, Politico reports.

The German and French Foreign Ministers led the efforts to impose sanction during the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, saying “We have agreed to enact sanctions against individuals that we consider to be responsible for this violation of international law.”

CNN: “Covid-19 cases are rising in North Dakota and the health care system in the state may not be well-equipped to handle this surge, a public health official warns. ‘Right now, the hospitals have less than 20 beds available across the state,’ said Renae Mock, director of Bismark-Burleigh Public Health, adding that it’s concerning because some hospitals are struggling to meet the demand for care. ‘We have some hospitals in very rural areas that are having difficulty meeting the demand, and having to send patients to different areas across the state of North Dakota, and even had to send out of state at some point to Sioux Falls [South Dakota] and also Billings, Montana.’ Mock says it’s been a challenge to ‘make a difference in the number of cases’ without a state mandate to enforce coronavirus safety measures.”

For the first time in the 2020 election cycle, each forecaster featured on 270toWin.com puts Biden above the threshold for an electoral college win. Politico was the last to put with their updated forecast Monday – calling for a 279 total electoral college vote win for the former vice president.

Being last to move also makes Politico the most small-c conservative. The Economist (forecast map pictured above) meanwhile, along with PredictIt, are the most bullish on Biden, with 334 electoral college votes. In the second tier are FiveThirtyEight and Inside Elections, both at 319 EC votes. Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Cook Political report leave blank a few more tossup states, both predict Biden with 290 votes at least leaning blue.

“Daniel Wood is a longshot Republican House candidate who has used social media to push conspiracy theories related to QAnon and to encourage people to not wear masks in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Despite his history of conspiratorial claims and dangerous medical misinformation, Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ), who is running in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country, spoke at a political rally with Wood this weekend” reports Media Matters.

“McSally’s appearance at an event with Wood is yet another example of how Republicans have helped legitimize QAnon. Wood, who is running for the House in a heavily Democratic Arizona congressional district, has frequently expressed support for QAnon with the help of social media. (Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been instrumental in helping spread QAnon.) He has repeatedly written pro-QAnon tweets; said on a QAnon program that he loves the conspiracy theory’s slogan; and he wrote a Facebook post explaining why ‘I do follow QAnon at times.'”

Gisele Barreto Fetterman, the wife of Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman, recorded a frightening incident at a Pittsburgh-area grocery store in which a woman ranted at her and called her a (n-word), the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

A philanthropist who set up services for families suffering from food insecurity, Barreto Fetterman was a one-time undocumented resident who came to the United States with her family from Brazil when she was 8 years old.

*TRIGGER WARNING* I love love love this country but we are so deeply divided. I ran to the local grocery store and was met by and verbally assaulted by this woman who repeatedly told me I do not belong here. The confrontation continued into the parking lot where I was able to pic.twitter.com/kzSoxCVJ2x

— Gisele Barreto Fetterman (@giselefetterman) October 11, 2020

Iowa republican Senator Joni Ernst, in an increasing tight battle for reelection in which many polls show her trailing, exhibited again why her seat is in danger.

During the confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett, Ernst praised the nominee saying, “This is what a mom can do.”

Apparently, Ernst did not realize that justices Sandra Day O’Conner and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were also mothers.

New York Times: “Joseph R. Biden Jr. holds a significant lead in the pivotal states of Michigan and Wisconsin, with President Trump so far failing to retain the overwhelming advantage he enjoyed among white voters there in 2016, according to surveys from The New York Times and Siena College on Monday. Over all, Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump by eight percentage points in Michigan, 48 percent to 40 percent, among likely voters. His lead in Wisconsin was slightly larger, 51 percent to 41 percent. The new results, along with recent Times/Siena surveys from elsewhere in the Northern battlegrounds, suggest that the president has not yet managed to reassemble his winning coalition across the region. He faces modest but significant defections among white and independent voters, while facing a groundswell of opposition from those who voted for a minor-party candidate or didn’t vote at all in 2016.”

A problem with the electronic polling books, the computer system used to check a voter’s registration, caused a delay at early voting locations around Georgia Monday, on the first day for early voting in the state, the Associated Press reports.

In Georgia, early voting allows any registered voter to cast a ballot at any early voting site, so universal polling books need to be accessed by all locations.  A similar problem happened during the 2018, leading to long lines and hours waiting to vote.  The problem wasn’t solved in 2018, causing polling places to use paper records or provisional ballots.

Polls opened at 8 a.m. ET in Georgia Monday, with long lines forming almost immediately.  Within two hours, many polling places reported problems with the electronic polling books.  This year, however, the problems were solved in about an hour, allowing lines to dissipate quickly.

The California republican Party has set up a series of “official” ballot drop boxes throughout southern California and promoted them on social media in an illegal ballot harvesting operation, the Washington Post reports.

The boxes, located outside places like churches, gun shops and gyms are bedecked in with a sign that labels it “Official Ballot Drop Off Box.”  The locations of these boxes have been promoted by social media accounts run by republican operatives.

Jordan Tygh, a republican regional field director, posted a now-deleted tweet proclaiming “Doing my part and voting early. … DM me for convenient locations to drop your ballot off at!”

If you see a smaller version of Donald Trump’s toupee crawling around your yard, beware!  The venomous Puff Caterpillar is invading Virginia as warmer temperatures creep north, IFLScience reports.

Common in Florida (of course), Missouri and Texas, the “hair” on the caterpillar hides a series of spines that contain a toxin that can cause swelling, vomiting, and fever, similar to the symptoms you’d experience if you’ve been around Trump in the past week.

Attack Of The "Walking Toupees" As Venomous Puss Caterpillars Invade Virginiahttps://t.co/BjGcnsolAF pic.twitter.com/NqnsdWsSto

— IFLScience (@IFLScience) October 9, 2020

“Facebook this morning announced a significant change in how it approaches Holocaust denial content on its social network. For years, the company has been criticized for not taking down this extremely offensive form of content in favor of allowing free speech and distancing itself from taking on the responsibilities of a traditional publisher. Today, it’s reversing that position, saying it will now update its hate speech policy to ‘prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.’ The company said it made the decision amid a growing number of online hate speech attacks as part of Facebook’s newer efforts to fight the spread of hate speech on its platforms.”

“‘We have banned more than 250 white supremacist organizations and updated our policies to address militia groups and QAnon,’ explained Facebook in an announcement. ‘We also routinely ban other individuals and organizations globally, and we took down 22.5 million pieces of hate speech from our platform in the second quarter of this year. Following a year of consultation with external experts, we recently banned anti-Semitic stereotypes about the collective power of Jews that often depicts them running the world or its major institutions,’ the company said” – Tech Crunch.

The Independent: “Belarusian authorities have threatened to start shooting demonstrators, raising the stakes in the country’s two-month standoff. In a video message released on social media, deputy interior minister Gennady Kazakevich claimed protests had become ‘extremely radical’. ‘Interior ministry officers and soldiers will not leave the streets,’ he said. ‘And if necessary, they will use special equipment and firearms.’ On Sunday, thousands of protesters clashed with government forces, who arrested hundreds, often violently. In a few cases, demonstrators were successful in fighting back to secure the release of their own. Mr Kazakevich described the scenes as preparation of a ‘colour revolution’.”

“The legislature can end the state of emergency at anytime, but so far has declined to do so. As the statewide representative body of the citizens of Wisconsin, the legislature’s inaction is relevant and it weighs against judicial intervention, especially when the requested intervention will have statewide impact. For these reasons, the motion for a temporary injunction is denied.” – St Croix County, Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge R. Michael Waterman.

New Republic: “The president is a sick man. On its face, Trump’s appalling handling of his coronavirus diagnosis doesn’t seem to tell us much more than we already knew about him. His inability to admit to any fault or vulnerability, his reckless disregard for others, and his brazen dishonesty are all too familiar to us now. But our weariness shouldn’t obscure the fact that Trump’s departure from Walter Reed and premature return to the White House and campaign trail—a potentially life-threatening course of action—is, by a wide margin, the bravest thing he’s ever done, a feat of personal daring that, of course, can’t really be construed as an act of personal sacrifice.”

“What is it all for? He isn’t the first president to downplay or obscure an illness, and he probably won’t be the last. But he may be the first to have risked worsening his condition without an obvious substantive rationale in mind. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy hid and worked to overcome their illnesses because they had things to do; Trump plainly does not. If he is reelected, a cadre of conservative advisers and strategists will reassemble to foist their policy objectives on him again, but at this point for Trump, who has yet to offer the public a real sense of what his own second-term priorities might be, victory is apparently its own end. For reasons that are possibly obscure even to him, Trump would like to remain the widely loathed and beleaguered leader of a country whose mounting crises he has only deepened.”

Three days after declaring himself feeling better than he’s felt in 20 years, Donald Trump’s daily schedule has no official presidential activities on it Monday.

The only event listed is a campaign rally in Sanford, Florida starting at 7 p.m. ET this evening.