Donald Trump, the incumbent republican nominee for president, will host the Rush Limbaugh radio program tomorrow as a surrogate to holding an in-person rally.

Looking forward to speaking with the Great Rush and guests! https://t.co/vMI4JZ7PQi

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2020

It is unclear if Trump will host all three hours of the Limbaugh show.  Limbaugh made the announcement in a pre-recorded statement because he is undergoing treatment for Stage-4 lung cancer.

The legality of giving Trump airtime to host a rally is legally dubious because it can be seen as a donation of advertising time for a specifically political purpose.

Curiously silent during the entire disclosure of a kidnapping plot of Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, President Trump has refused to mention the reported conspiracy of Michigan militia.

As President, Trump would have been updated about the federal law enforcement efforts to kidnap and possibly murder a state governor by a terrorist group.  During a normal presidency, POTUS would make a statement of support to the governor and to law enforcement.

Instead, Trump has been silent on the issue.  In 24 tweets or retweets today, Trump hasn’t even mentioned Whitmer or the plot.

Obviously, Trump is avoiding his direct connection to this.  His support of militia, and his cry to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” in mid-April, are not coincidental to the actions of these domestic terrorists.  He wants this scandal, like all his other ones, to fade away.

“JUST IN: ABC News will host a town hall with Joe Biden moderated by George Stephanopoulos on October 15th. The primetime event will take place in Philadelphia where the former vice president will answer questions from voters” – ABC News.

Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer addressed the charges brought by state and federal officials against 13 members of two militia groups who plotted to “kidnap and possibly kill” her.

She thanked the law enforcement officials who protected her and her family, including her two teenage daughters and three stepsons.  She thanked prosecutors who are “pursuing criminal charges that hopefully lead to convictions, bringing these sick and depraved men to justice.”

“I’ve said it many times:  we are not one another’s enemy,” Whitmer said.  “This virus is our enemy, and this enemy is relentless.”  Whitmer went on to say that the virus doesn’t discriminate based on political affiliation, wealth or race.  “It threatens us all,” she said.

“Breaking: Supreme Court rejects GOP effort to block mail voting in Montana. The emergency application was denied by Justice Kagan” – The Hill Supreme Court Reporter John Kruzel

AP: “Elliott Broidy, a fundraiser for President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, has been charged in an illicit lobbying campaign aimed at getting the Trump administration to drop an investigation into the multibillion-dollar looting of a Malaysian state investment fund. Broidy is the latest person accused by the Justice Department of participating in the covert lobbying effort, which also sought to arrange for the return of a Chinese dissident living in the U.S. A consultant, Nickie Lum Davis, agreed to plead guilty in federal court in Hawaii in August.”

“The case was filed this week in federal court in Washington, D.C. Prosecutors allege that Broidy worked with Davis and others to get the Justice Department to abandon its pursuit of billions of dollars that officials say were pilfered from 1MDB, a Malaysian wealth fund that was established more than a decade ago to accelerate the country’s economic development.”

USA Today: “Republican state Rep. Aaron Bernstine shared video clips this summer on his now-deleted Snapchat account in which he encourages his 5-year-old son to puff on a cigar and use profane language — and plays an adult-themed game with another youngster. The videos have spurred one of his two general election challengers to call for Bernstine to immediately resign.”

“In one video obtained by the USA TODAY Network, Bernstine, R-10, New Beaver, Lawrence County, is behind the camera, but his hand is shown holding a cigar and offering it to his son. When the young boy takes a puff, Bernstine tells him to ‘hit it harder’ and ‘breathe in,’ followed by a woman’s voice saying, ‘No.’ A second video has Bernstine again off camera asking his son, ‘What are we going to chase in Nashville?’ The boy replies in a whisper, “Cadillac p—-,” using a vulgar term for vagina. Bernstine is running for a third two-year term and faces two challengers, Beaver Falls Democrat Kolbe Cole and independent candidate Johnathan Peffer of Franklin Township, who is running under the United Party banner.”

AP: “A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked a decision to extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots in battleground Wisconsin, in a win for Republicans who have fought attempts to expand voting across the country. If the ruling stands, absentee ballots will have to be delivered to Wisconsin election clerks by 8 p.m. on Election Day if they are to be counted. Results of the presidential race in the pivotal swing state would be known within hours of polls closing.”

“Democrats almost certainly will appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Under state law, absentee ballots are due in local clerks’ offices by 8 p.m. on election night, but Democrats and allied groups sued to extend the deadline after the April presidential primary saw long lines, fewer polling places, a shortage of poll workers and thousands of ballots mailed days after the election.”

In an interview on Fox “Business” this morning, President Trump echoed the fascistic actions of autocrats by claiming that he has federal law enforcement watching officials in New Mexico and Nevada for potential voter fraud.

According to the Washington Post, Trump told Maria Bartiromo that Nevada officials were “cheaters.”  Trump also complained that Nevada’s Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak made it difficult for him to hold a campaign rally in the state last month, during the coronavirus pandemic.

“And he’s in charge of the ballots,” Trump said of Sisolak. “And there’s bad things happening out there. Now, we have law enforcement watching him, very strong. U.S. attorney is watching him very strongly. The U.S. marshal is watching.”

“Brad Parscale reportedly broke down in tears while in police custody last month — admitting to an officer that his wife was not being intimate with him. President Trump’s former campaign manager was allegedly armed and threatening to harm himself when he made the marital disclosure to the cops” The New York Post reports.

“‘I just couldn’t accept she isn’t having sex with me,’ Parscale sobbed to a female police officer at a hospital after his Sept. 27 meltdown at his Fort Lauderdale home, according to newly released police body cameras recordings obtained by the Daily Mail. ‘I just couldn’t accept it. Not in months. I couldn’t accept it. I just kept asking her,’ the 44-year-old said. Parscale had been detained and evaluated at the hospital, but never charged for the incident that unraveled after his wife, Candice Parscale, fled their home and asked for help from a real estate agent showing a nearby house, officials said. Police were called and Candice told them her husband was armed and had made comments about harming himself.”

During a media briefing in Lansing, FBI, Department of Justice, the Michigan Attorney General and Michigan State Police representatives outlined the plan of six militia members to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation home in Western Michigan.

In a separate action, the state Attorney General is charging seven people, all in custody, with a variety of felonies relating to targeting law enforcement officials, trying to start a civil war and plotting to take over the state capitol.

The timeline of their actions corresponds with President Trump’s tweet in mid-April for people to “liberate Michigan.”  While some of the organization happened before the tweet, the plan was fasttracked after the tweet.

LIBERATE MICHIGAN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

“Donald Trump doesn’t make the debate schedule; the Debate Commission does. We accepted the three dates – Sept. 29, Oct. 15, and Oct. 22 – in June. Trump chose today to pull out of the October 15th debate. Trump’s erratic behavior does not allow him to rewrite the calendar, and pick new dates of his choosing. We look forward to participating in the final debate, scheduled for October 22, which already is tied for the latest debate date in 40 years. Donald Trump can show up, or he can decline again; That’s his choice” – Biden Deputy Campaign Manager Kate Beddingfield.

In an unprecedented foray into the political realm, the New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial titled “Dying in a Leadership Vacuum,” calling on voters to vote out political leaders who have not done enough to battle the coronavirus pandemic, NBC News reports.

“When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent,” the editors wrote. “We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”

According to the Department of Labor’s weekly report, 840,000 Americans filed for first time unemployment during the week ending October 3rd, maintaining an elevated number of claimants and signaling that the economy is still reeling from the coronavirus.

The previous week’s report was also revised up by 12,000 claimants to 849,000.  This week’s number is four times the number of people who applied for unemployment during the same time last year.

During the week ending September 15th, 25.5 million Americans were receiving some type of unemployment benefit.  During the same week in 2019, 1.4 million Americans were receiving unemployment benefits, 5.5% of the current number.

After refusing to participate in a virtual debate on October 15th because he could still be infected with the coronavirus, Donald Trump’s campaign has proposed moving dates for in-person debates to October 22nd and October 29th, MSNBC reports.

In a statement by campaign manager Bill Stepien, who is infected with the coronavirus himself, the campaign offered this option, moving the final debate to five days before Election Day.

“The FBI thwarted what they described as a plot to violently overthrow the government and kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and federal prosecutors are expected to discuss the alleged conspiracy later Thursday” the Detroit News reports.

“The alleged plot involved reaching out to members of a Michigan militia, according to a federal affidavit filed Thursday. ‘Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,’ an FBI agent wrote in the affidavit. ‘The group decided they needed to increase their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread their message.’ The affidavit was filed hours after a team of FBI agents raided a Hartland Township home Wednesday and comes amid an ongoing investigation into the death of a Metro Detroit man killed during a shootout with FBI agents. The conspiracy described by the FBI involved at least six people, including Ty Garbin, 24, whose home was raided by agents in Hartland Township late Wednesday.”

Business Insider: “Cybercriminals are setting up fake voting websites to spread misinformation and confuse people ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election, the FBI announced last week. Some of the fake sites aim to mislead voters to influence the election, while others try to use interest around voting to steal people’s passwords. They imitate official election sites but use slightly altered spellings, like changing one letter in the word “election” to trick people into trusting them. Other versions of the scam use similar tactics to send people emails from spoofed addresses that appear to come from election officials, baiting them with emails that purport to contain information about voting in order to get people to click on malicious links. The fake websites are being run by scammers and ‘foreign actors’ according to the FBI’s announcement, but the agency did not specify which entities may be behind the sites.”

“There are understandable reasons why Trump would want to opt out of a virtual debate. The format itself – with the two candidates in competing boxes on screen, socially distanced from one another – will be a reminder of his administration’s failure to contain the coronavirus. There are also some precedents for Trump tangling with debate sponsors. He boycotted one GOP primary debate in January 2016, citing his disdain for moderator Megyn Kelly. But at that time, Trump was the party’s frontrunner and didn’t necessarily need to debate. The current context is very different. Trump is clearly lagging behind Biden in both national and battleground state polls, which means he needs the debate platform more than Biden does. And his obsession with popularity, as measured by TV ratings, is the stuff of legend. After last week’s debate, he tweeted, ‘HIGHEST CABLE TELEVISION RATINGS OF ALL TIME.’ That wasn’t technically true, but it was in line with his narrative. So there are ample reasons to be skeptical of his no-debate claims now” – Brian Stelter.

Detroit Metro Times: “Two right-wing fraudsters charged in an alleged robocall scheme to spread misinformation in Michigan have turned themselves in Thursday morning and are expected to be arraigned soon with a series of felonies. Jacob Wohl, 22, and Jack Burkman, 54, who have a history of spreading hoaxes and outlandish conspiracy theories, were each charged on Oct. 1 with intimidating voters, conspiracy to commit an election law violation, and using a computer to commit the crime of conspiracy and election law. If convicted, they face up to 12 years in prison.”