James.galbraith

Lost in all the Republican efforts to suppress the vote by attacking absentee and mail-in voting is one of the biggest blocs of absentee voters there is: the military. We know Donald Trump already thinks they're suckers and losers, but is the Republican Party setting itself up to disenfranchise those troops they've supposedly been so avidly supporting all these years? Will they be happy to see their late-arriving ballots to be tossed?

Fully 20% of the absentee ballots cast in Florida in 2016 were military ballots, and advocates there and around the country are raising the alarm that the pandemic, the chaos caused by Louis DeJoy's sabotage at the U.S. Postal Service, and the political fighting over absentee ballots could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of military voters. “We’ve seen in the past, obviously Florida is the key example, that it can come down to a single state and not very many votes,” Jack Noland, a researcher for Count Every Hero, a nonpartisan military voting advocacy group, told McClatchy. “It is not out of the realm of possibility, at all, that some of these statewide or down-ballot races could be determined by overseas and military voters.”

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More than a quarter of a million of active duty forces voted absentee in 2016, "50,000 of those ballots were cast in Florida, almost 33,000 in Washington state and 20,000 in Texas." Those states' military bases tend to be the permanent address for many active duty members, because they don't have state income taxes. But the concentration of these votes in Florida, and this year Texas, "really can impact a close election in one state, and give them outside power that when distributed they wouldn't normally have," said Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president of the nonpartisan U.S. Vote Foundation and Overseas Vote. As of one week ago, nearly 48,000 absentee military ballots have been returned, about 15,000 more than had been returned the same time last presidential cycle.

Some of the service members who were burned by the 2000 election, when the vote was called off short by the Supreme Court, are working now to make sure that doesn't happen again. “We were working seven days a week, like we do when we are overseas. But I sat down, I took my ballot, and I voted,” retired Navy Capt. Gabe Soltero said. “I would like to think my vote was counted, but I never found out. Was it left aside like many other hanging chads? I don’t know. But that’s always bothered me.” He's volunteering now with Count Every Hero.

Plenty of service members—and their spouses—are reporting issues getting their ballots. “This year in particular I am really concerned there are going to be voters who slip through the cracks,” said Sarah Streyder, who founded the Military Vote Coalition which helps service members and their spouses vote. “You can control when you postmark a ballot, but can’t control when it’s going to get delivered,” Streyder said. Army Col. Chris Paone is in Okinawa, Japan, has been waiting for weeks to get his ballot from Florida. This one can't even be blamed on the USPS—it's supposed to arrive by email. “We’ve been checking spam and junk filters everyday since the ballots were released (45 days out from the election) and he hasn’t received anything,” his spouse, Megan Paone, told McClatchy. “He filled out a FWAB (a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot, an emergency backup ballot) and sent it in just in case his actual ballot didn’t come.”

The Military Times, meanwhile, is advising members that it's not too late to vote absentee. In a normal year without, well, everything, it wouldn't be. But it is advising "In 29 states and the District of Columbia, the laws and rules allow election officials to count ballots that arrive after the polls close from military, their family members, and U.S. citizens overseas, according to an analysis conducted for the Count Every Hero campaign. It varies from two extra days in South Carolina to 20 days in Washington state." States are required under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act to make provisions for overseas and military voters, including in many states extended deadlines for registration and for ballot receipt.

Count Every Hero is doing what they can to make sure it happens, including an ad campaign that demand the television networks wait until all military ballots are counted before declaring election winners. Spokeswoman Ellen Moorhouse told the Military Times "When we say we are worried about ballots not being counted, we are referring to very real threats of a candidate prematurely declaring victory, as well as litigation or interference with the Electoral College via state legislatures," Moorhouse said. "These scenarios could play out in a close race. That’s why we are demanding that vote-counting continue if a winner is not statistically assured by the end of Election Day." Gee, I wonder which candidate she might have in mind there?

"Disenfranchising even one of the thousands of our brave service members and their families by not counting their valid ballots that have been postmarked by Election Day would be a grave insult to the sacrifices our heroes make each and every day," Moorhouse said.

Unlawfully appointed acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Chad Wolf took a break from using his government position to campaign for impeached president Donald Trump’s reelection to finally address the family separation disaster. No, he wasn’t announcing he was dropping his appearance at Trump’s stupid wall to help reunite families torn apart under the administration’s policy. He was instead saying that families are separated only because they chose to be separated.

Parents, Unlawful Chad claimed to CBS News on Tuesday, “have chosen to have their kids remain here in the United States while they remain back in their home countries. They have chosen. They themselves have chosen to separate their children from themselves,” the report said. When then asked if he “had any regrets” about helping implement the state-sanctioned kidnapping of children at the southern border, Unlawful Chad “said he did not.”

Advocacy group Families Belong Together tweeted that this coiffed mini-fascist “baselessly claimed that the families separated under the family separation policy are choosing to remain apart from their children. Here’s what he left out. Chad Wolf claimed that these parents want their children to remain in the US without them. What he didn’t mention is that these parents aren’t allowed to reunite with their kids in the US, where they are safe. If they want to see their children, they risk putting them in danger.”

That is if they can even be found. Hundreds of children taken from parents in 2017 remain without their parents because it was the Trump administration that made the decision to separate them when they shouldn’t have been separated, and then deported parents when they shouldn’t have been deported. They didn’t choose any of that. It was done to them by the administration.

Then, much like the “binary choice” for detained families in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, the government has given some parents who have been located a choice that’s actually no choice at all. If we can even find you, sure, you can reunite with your kid. But they’ll need to leave the U.S. first.

”Responding to Wolf's comments, Lee Gelernt, the top ACLU attorney in the family separation court case, said his group has not yet stated that any of the 485 located parents want their children brought back to Central America because ‘overwhelmingly those families want to reunite with their child in the U.S,’” CBS News continued. “He added that the preference of the ‘unreachable’ parents is unknown since they have not been located.

"The fundamental point is that the Trump administration is trying to suggest that these parents do not want their children. Nothing could be further from the truth," Gelernt continued to CBS News. "The administration is forcing families into the horrible choice of potential permanent separation or bringing a child back to danger, when what should happen is that parents should be allowed to rejoin their child in the United States. That is the simple and humane way to deal with the horrific problem created by this administration."

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said this week that should he win the presidency he will on day one of his new administration sign an executive order creating a federal task force to help reunite these families. They must be reunited—and those reunifications must happen in the U.S. with families put on a path to citizenship as part of righting the wrong done to them by our nation.

“No parent wants to be ripped away from their child,” Families Belong Together continued. “And no parent wants to choose between being with their child and their child’s safety. Wolf’s claims are false, misleading, and heartless.”

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The president keeps saying and doing things that make down-ballot Republicans' task more difficult.

A moderator from NBC News affiliate KSNT in Topeka, Kansas, called out a local politician, and Twitter is here for it. It all started when Republican Congressman Roger Marshall, who is running for Senate, ignored the news channel’s invitations. KSNT invited both Kansas Sen. Barbara Bollier and Marshall to a debate, only to hear back from Bollier in regard to it. During the segment, the moderator clarified that Marshall was contacted not just once but multiple times. 

”One candidate agreed to appear. We want to be clear that we emailed, called, and even sent a certified letter to Congressman Marshall inviting him to participate tonight but he ignored the request,” the moderator said. “And as part of that we were clear with the candidates we would have just one candidate on to answer questions if just one agreed to participate.”

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She then accompanied her statement with a nice presentation slide depicting the dates Marshall was contacted, but that wasn’t all—she brought the receipts. In a bold and baus move, the moderator pulled out the receipts for the certified letters sent to Marshall on Sept. 29. She even had a tweet from Oct. 26 enlarged on the screen in which Marshall alleged he had a prior commitment on the day of the debate. 

All this came after Marshall blatantly lied to KSNT’s sister station, Southeast Kansas, and said that the debate seemed like a “set up” since he was not aware of it until the day before. This moderator was not down to take his shit and called him out on live television, and people loved it.

Pulling out the receipts, she said: “Just to be abundantly clear and to be completely transparent, this right here is a receipt showing we sent Congressman Marshall a letter by certified mail on September 29. We also—Bob, as we know, had just seen the tweet that showed on Monday, whether it was Congressman Marshall or someone from his campaign, that he did say that he had prior obligations, which is why—so not sure why he's saying that he thought this was maybe some type of set up or maybe something we dropped, but definitely not the case.”

Moments after the clip was posted on Twitter, replies on how savage the moderator was flooded the thread. Check it out for yourself.

And there’s a lot more where that came from. Check out the thread on Twitter for more memes and gifs applauding her response.

He has offered us a corruption master class, showing how deep and wide it can go.

united_notions writes: As reported in Sweden's The Local, Amazon has just launched in the nordic nation, and all the listings are in Swedish... just, not always the right Swedish. For example, "A greetings card depicting a duckling in a field was named söta-ansikte-kuk or 'sweet-face-dick'." Oops.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier today we reported that hundreds of Trump supporters were left stranded in freezing temperatures, sending some to the hospital, following the president’s rally in Omaha, Nebraska. Comic Blaire Erskine imagines what those MAGA die-hards might be saying in a satirical video that’s taking social media by storm.

“I’m having a great time,” says Erskine. “I can’t feel my body, but I don’t really need my body. This is about Trump’s body.”

“I think this whole thing’s been blown way out of proportion, you know?” she adds. “Yeah, they didn’t let us drive our cars here. But it’s because they said, you know, our cars are poor, and that doesn’t look good on TV.”

“I think [Trump] did this to teach us a lesson,” Erskine continues, “I really do. What was that lesson? Well, that’s not really for me to know, and that’s actually pretty nasty of you to ask.”

She goes on: “Democrats want to have their bus rides, and have their bus rides back too. This isn’t the Polar Express! Tom Hanks isn’t in charge of this thing, he’s in Greece being a pedophile. No, I don’t feel like [Trump] abandoned us. No. Listen, I would walk 750 miles in below zero temperatures nip nude just to hear him speak.”

“Yes, I’ve seen some elderly people passed out and unresponsive, but to be honest, the only reason there’s so many of those people is because the media keeps counting them. And so if people like you guys weren’t counting the old people that were on the ground, there wouldn’t be as many.”

Woman stranded at MAGA rally in Omaha says Trump wanted to teach them a lesson pic.twitter.com/SvqYw5MnOZ

— blaire erskine (@blaireerskine) October 28, 2020

The post ‘Freezing Trump Supporter’ Stranded at Omaha Rally Speaks Out in Viral Video: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

UC Berkeley's new poll of California finds Proposition 22, a ballot measure that would designate drivers for “App-Based Transportation and Delivery Companies” as independent contractors with some benefits rather than as employees, leading by a narrow 46-42 spread. Proposition 22 needs to win a simple majority to pass next week.

This has been the most expensive ballot measure campaign in Californian—and perhaps American—history, with just shy of $220 million being raised through mid-October. Thanks to massive expenditures from the ride-share giants Uber and Lyft and delivery companies like DoorDash, the “yes” side has taken in close to $200 million.

Proposition 22’s proponents have also been campaigning in other ways. Ride-share passengers have received numerous push notifications telling them to vote yes, while Uber drivers logging into their app have also seen a slideshow with messages like, “A no vote would mean far fewer jobs.”

Meanwhile, labor groups have contributed much of the $20 million raised by the campaign against Proposition 22, a figure that’s only about a tenth of what their rivals have brought in. However, a number of prominent state and national Democratic politicians have opposed the measure, including Joe Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, as well as Rep. Barbara Lee and former presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Despite the yes side’s lopsided resource advantage, UC Berkeley finds little change from its last poll in mid-September, when Proposition 22 led by a similar 39-36 spread. The only other poll we’ve seen was a late September SurveyUSA poll that had the measure in better shape with a 45-31 edge.

Ride-share and app-based delivery companies have long classified their drivers as independent contractors rather than as employees, which meant that these businesses didn’t need to pay for benefits like health care, unemployment insurance, or expense reimbursement. A 2018 California Supreme Court ruling and subsequent state law, though, made it much more difficult for gig companies to designate workers this way.

Uber and Lyft, which argue that they’re tech businesses rather than transportation companies, have continued to classify their drivers as contractors, which led to a lawsuit from state Attorney General Xavier Becerra and several city attorneys. On Thursday, a state appeals court upheld a lower court ruling saying that these ride-share companies needed to treat their drivers in California as employees. The ruling is on hold for now, though, and if Proposition 22 prevails next week, it would never go into effect.

The ride-share companies have warned that the failure of Proposition 22 would impose massive costs on them that would lead to far fewer drivers in California and higher prices for customers. The measure’s opponents, meanwhile, have argued that a win for the yes side would harm drivers, with Rep. Barbara Lee declaring, “You have very clearly crossed the line when you try to claim the equity mantle for a campaign that has always been about allowing multibillion-dollar app companies to write their own law so that they can keep exploiting the labor of drivers, eight in 10 of whom are people of color.”

If Proposition 22 succeeds, it would be extremely difficult to change. The measure would require seven-eighths of each chamber of the legislature to make any amendments, an unprecedented threshold that makes major alterations all but impossible. Local governments would also not be able to require companies to provide additional benefits or protections for their gig workers. Another ballot measure could be passed by voters to replace Proposition 22, but as this year’s campaign shows, gig companies would spend whatever it takes to stop anything they opposed.

Jerry Falwell Jr. is suing Liberty University over his forced resignation. after Falwell resigned in August, after Giancarlo Granda, the “pool boy” Falwell Jr. said was extorting he and his wife over an alleged affair told Reuters that Falwell “enjoyed watching from the corner of the room” while Granda had sex with his wife.

NBC News reports: “Falwell said he filed a complaint in state court in Lynchburg, Virginia, claiming that Liberty University wrongly damaged his reputation.”

Falwell’s attorney Robert Raskopf  released a statement: “We attempted to meet several times with the Liberty University Board of Trustees Executive Committee but were unsuccessful in doing so. Thus, we were forced to seek remedy for Mr. Falwell’s ongoing injuries and damage to his reputation through the Court.”

The full press release:

Today, Jerry Falwell, Jr., the former President and Chancellor of Liberty University, sued the school founded by his father, Dr. Jerry Falwell, which Falwell, Jr. saved from financial collapse and built into the leading Evangelical Christian university in the world over his 13-year stewardship as President.

In his Complaint filed in the Commonwealth of Virginia Circuit Court for the City of Lynchburg, Mr. Falwell claims that Liberty University needlessly injured and damaged his reputation through a series of statements, published in print and spoken in large public forums and streamed online, following his forced resignation from the University.

According to the Complaint, these statements had the effect of affirming false claims that an individual made publicly against Mr. Falwell after years-long attempts at extortion against Falwell and his wife Becki.

Based on research and investigation, this individual appears to be supported financially by political opponents of Mr. Falwell in the midst of a heated presidential campaign, likely including the anti-Trump political action committee called The Lincoln Project.

The Complaint, which includes claims of Defamation and Breach of Contract, alleges that Liberty University officials accepted the false claims against Mr. Falwell without investigation to force his resignation, and then engaged in a campaign to “tarnish, minimize, and outright destroy the legacy of the Falwell family and Mr. Falwell’s reputation.”

“We attempted to meet several times with the Liberty University Board of Trustees Executive Committee but were unsuccessful in doing so. Thus, we were forced to seek remedy for Mr. Falwell’s ongoing injuries and damage to his reputation through the Court,” said Robert Raskopf of Quinn Emanuel, the lead counsel representing Mr. Falwell.

The post Jerry Falwell Jr. Suing Liberty University Over Forced Resignation in Wake of Pool Boy Affair appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

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This comic is about me. ME!

Today's News:

By Carly Tennes  Published: October 28th, 2020 

Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) told reporters Wednesday that she is not familiar with remarks made by Donald Trump in the infamous Access Hollywood tape about sexually assaulting women.

I’m sorry. I’m not familiar with that,” said Loeffler, when asked specifically about the tape.

In the interview, Loeffler said she doesn’t disagree with anything Trump has said or done.

Here’s the video of Kelly Loeffler denying knowing about President Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape. #GASen (Source: @11AliveNews) pic.twitter.com/t7satCF0cU

— Jessy Han (@hjessy_) October 29, 2020

Democrat Raphael Warnock is leading Loeffler by a clear margin, ahead of both Loeffler and Rep. Doug Collins (R) in Georgia’s special election.

The full interview:

The post Senator Kelly Loeffler is ‘Not Familiar with’ Trump’s ‘Grab ‘Em by the Pussy’ Tape: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Joe Biden has pledged to prioritize passing a landmark LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination bill in his first 100 days as president.

“To help achieve our vision of equality, I will make enactment of the Equality Act a top legislative priority during my first 100 days—a priority that Donald Trump opposes,” Biden said in a Q&A with the Philadelphia Gay News. “This is essential to ensuring that no future president can ever again roll back civil rights and protections for LGBTQ+ individuals, including when it comes to housing.”

The Equality Act would “amend existing civil rights law—including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Fair Housing Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Jury Selection and Services Act, and several laws regarding employment with the federal government—to explicitly include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected characteristics. The legislation also amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination in public spaces and services and federally funded programs on the basis of sex.”

So, kinda a big step forward. Of course, Biden needs a Democratic Senate to get this done.

In the Q&A, Biden also pledged to “champion passage of the Ruthie and Connie LGBT Elder Americans Act, which will end discriminatory passages and ensure LGBTQ+ seniors have equal access to services outlined by the Older Americans Act.” He said he would treat LGBTQ rights as a matter for global leadership in relations with brutally discriminatory countries. He explicitly included LGBTQ people in his ongoing promise to build an administration that looks like America. And he specifically addressed the ongoing Republican campaign to use religious freedom to justify discrimination, saying: “Religion should not be used as a license to discriminate, and as president I will oppose legislation to deny LGBTQ+ equal treatment in public places.”

Jon Ossoff and Sen. David Perdue debated on Wednesday night, and Ossoff was pulling absolutely no punches, calling Perdue a “crook” to his face. The debate came days before the election and with Ossoff narrowly leading in many polls—though often below the 50% mark that Georgia law requires to avoid a runoff—and Ossoff had clearly decided not to play it safe and bland.

That “crook” comment came as Ossoff talked about Perdue’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying: “Perhaps you would have been able to respond properly to the COVID-19 pandemic if you hadn’t been fending off multiple federal investigations for insider trading. It’s not just that you’re a crook, senator, it’s that you’re attacking the health of the people that you represent.”

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“You did say COVID-19 was no deadlier than the flu. You did say there would be no significant uptick in cases,” Ossoff continued. “All the while you were looking over your own assets and your own portfolio, and you did vote four times to end protections for preexisting conditions. Four times. And the legislation that you tout—the Protect Act—it includes loopholes that specifically allow insurance companies to deny policies to Georgians with preexisting conditions. Can you look down the camera and tell the people of this state why you voted four times to allow insurance companies to deny us health coverage because we may suffer from diabetes or heart disease or asthma or have cancer in remission. Why, senator?”

That clip (watch below) has gone viral, drawing over 6 million views and counting. But there was another important moment in which Ossoff took it right to Perdue, too.

“You’ve continued to demean yourself throughout this campaign with your conduct,” Ossoff said, addressing Perdue. “First, you were lengthening my nose in attack ads to remind everybody that I’m Jewish. Then when that didn’t work, you started calling me some kind of Islamic terrorist. And then when that didn’t work, you started calling me a Chinese communist. It’s ridiculous, and you shouldn’t do everything that your handlers in Washington tell you to, ‘cause you’ll lose your soul along the way, senator. What the people of Georgia deserve is a serious discussion of economic relief for Georgia families and how we’re going to protect coverage for preexisting conditions.”

That’s going to leave a mark—and check out Perdue’s face during both of those moments. 

With Wisconsin setting daily records for COVID-19 cases, the idea that Donald Trump would come to town and rage against social distancing seems surreal. “Speaking of lockdowns," said Trump, “let's get your governor to open it up. Get him to open it up." Trump said that on Tuesday, the same day that the state set a record not just for cases, but for hospitalizations. And deaths. 

When White House chief of staff Mark Meadows made clear last weekend that Trump’s strategy was not to even attempt slowing down the pandemic, it might have seemed like bad phrasing. A slip of the tongue. Something soon to be walked back. Except … not really. All that was walked back was the name. Doing absolutely nothing has always been Trump’s strategy. 

From the first entry of the 2019 novel coronavirus into the United States, what Trump has wanted most is to simply ignore it. To say it’s going down to zero. That it’s going away. That magic will intervene. Trump hasn’t merely put his hands over his eyes like monkey #2, he’s actively decided not to test, not to trace, not to set any federal standards. The problem for Trump until recently is that medical experts lingering around the White House kept insisting that allowing people to die needlessly was a bad idea. It took Trump a few months to find someone who disagreed with that statement, but with retired radiologist Scott Atlas at the helm of the coronavirus task force, all pretense is being cast aside. Herd immunity isn’t just a deadly idea, it’s official policy.

Though it seems that Trump is still shying away from the actual phrase “herd immunity.” He could always go with “negligent homicide.” It means the same thing.

On Wednesday evening, The Daily Beast reported that the White House has “embraced” the concept of herd immunity with Atlas leading the charge. Atlas was brought on board in the spring specifically because of his right-wing media appearances, where he had publicly attacked experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci for insisting on testing, social distancing, and the value of masks.

In March, the U.K. government made it clear that herd immunity was a strategy that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was treating seriously. A proposal that appeared both there and in the United States proposed that simply allowing COVID-19 to spread, or even encouraging infection, would create the least disruption and allow the population to quickly reach a level where the pandemic would no longer be sustained. But even as this proposal was being announced, Oxford and others quickly showed that accepting this path forward meant buying into millions of deaths. Not only would COVID-19 carve a path across the nation, taking a percentage of the population equivalent to a world war, the high rate of hospitalization would strain the health system to the point of collapse, placing millions of others at risk. The U.K. backed away from the proposal—though not before casting their COVID-19 effort into such chaos that they still ended up with one of the worst fatality rates in the world.

In the U.S. it took Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, and others to walk Trump through the disaster of attempting to reach herd immunity. When Trump appeared in front of a chart that showed a potential two million dead, that chart was explicitly prepared to show him the cost of going with an official do nothing plan. Confronting Trump over the deaths that would result from herd immunity led to the March 13 White House event where Trump hosted CEOs from six major big box stores to announce a nationwide system of testing overseen by a website that, Trump said, was being written by “17,000 engineers at Google.”

But Trump never pulled the trigger on that testing plan. Soon after, Trump and the team of investment bankers and college buddies assembled by Jared Kushner, decided that not testing would be a better idea. They made that decision explicitly because the first surge of disease was generating most of its damage in the Northeast, and just letting those blue states burn would give them a political edge over Democratic governors.

The truth is that Trump never took action. There was no national testing strategy. No contact tracing effort. No national stay-at-home order. Not even any federally enforced guidelines. 

In September, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany issued a statement denying that herd immunity was the official White House strategy. But herd immunity was already the de facto strategy before Atlas arrived. Placing Atlas at the helm made it more obvious. The only thing Trump seems to be trying to dodge is the term “herd immunity.” White House officials confirm that official policy is being set around exactly that idea. They’re just playing “a game of semantics” to avoid saying the phrase.

The number of people who would die from following this policy has not gone down. Neither has the effect following this policy would have on the nation’s already exhausted and strained healthcare system. 

Worse still, Trump is pursuing a policy that is not only murder, it’s fantasy. Multiple studies have, from the very beginning, indicated that natural immunity to COVID-19 may not be long lasting. Studies out of the U.K. in the last week show that the level of antibodies in the population there continued to fall sharply month over month. And that’s happening even though the nation is nowhere close to reaching the levels of infection that would be required to reach anything like effective herd immunity. The absolute futility of a herd immunity strategy has become blindingly clear.

America is no more capable of reaching herd immunity for COVID-19 than it is for the common cold. Except this cold will take 1% to 3% of the population at each pass.

It’s that time of year again. | Muhammad Firdaus Khaled/EyeEm/Getty Images

We turned our clocks back at 2 am Sunday. Here’s why.

On Sunday, November 1, at 2 am, daylight saving time ended. We set our clocks back one hour, heralding the end of daylight saving time for much of the country.

The biggest consequence: The change shifts daylight back into the morning hours. That means sunrise happened one hour earlier on November 1 (sadly, it means sunset will occur one hour earlier as well.) For weekend workers, at least, it means an additional glorious hour of sleep on Sunday. Hurrah!

Yet as simple as it seems, there is still a lot of confusion about daylight saving time. The first thing to know: Yes, it ends in the fall, just as the decrease in daylight hours is becoming noticeable.

Let’s sort it all out.

1) Why do we need to “save” daylight hours in the summer?

Daylight saving time in the US started as an energy conservation trick during World War I and became a national standard in the 1960s.

The idea is that in the summer months, we shift the number of daylight hours we get into the evening. So if the sun sets at 8 pm instead of 7, we’d presumably spend less time with the lights on in our homes at night, saving electricity.

It also means that you’re less likely to sleep through daylight hours in the morning (since those are shifted an hour later too). Hence “saving” daylight hours for the most productive time of the day.

Overall: We agree, the name is kind of confusing.

2) Isn’t it “daylight savings time” not “daylight saving time”?

No, it’s definitely called “daylight saving time.” Not plural. Be sure to point out this common mistake to friends and acquaintances. You’ll be really popular.

3) Does it actually lead to energy savings?

As Joseph Stromberg outlined in an excellent 2015 Vox article, the actual electricity conservation from the time change is unclear or nonexistent:

Despite the fact that daylight saving time was introduced to save fuel, there isn’t strong evidence that the current system actually reduces energy use — or that making it year-round would do so, either. Studies that evaluate the energy impact of DST are mixed. It seems to reduce lighting use (and thus electricity consumption) slightly but may increase heating and AC use, as well as gas consumption. It’s probably fair to say that energy-wise, it’s a wash.

4) Why doesn’t Arizona or Hawaii change its clocks?

Arizona has a simple way to deal with daylight saving time: Most of the state ignores it.

Fifty years ago, the state legislature opted to keep the clocks in most of the state in standard time all year. One reason: Arizona summers are very hot, and an earlier sunset gives residents more time to enjoy tolerable temperatures before bed, as AZcentral explains. Confusing matters: The Navajo Nation within Arizona does use DST.

Hawaii also doesn’t observe DST. The island state is the farthest south of all states and rejected it because it doesn’t see a hugely noticeable daylight hour difference between winter and summer months.

5) Didn’t a bunch of states pass laws making daylight saving time permanent? What happened with those?

If you’re a bit confused about which states follow daylight saving time and which do not, I don’t blame you. That’s because lately, a few states have looked into joining Arizona and Hawaii, but with a twist: They want daylight saving time to be in place all year long.

In the November 2018 election, Californians voted in favor of a ballot measure that paves the way for this. The measure, which passed with 60 percent of the vote, simply grants the California Legislature the power to vote to change the clocks permanently. Any changes would need to start with a two-thirds majority vote in the state legislature — which hasn’t happened yet.

And even then, the time change wouldn’t be a given. The federal government would have to approve it; that has uncertain prospects too.

In 2018, the Florida government approved the delightfully named Sunshine Protection Act, which seeks to permanently leave Florida in daylight saving time. (Essentially, it would mean that Florida will be one hour ahead of the rest of the East Coast during the winter months.) Massachusetts has looked into a similar measure, too.

The bill is still waiting on approval from Congress before it can go into effect. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has put forth a few bills to push forward the approval, but they haven’t moved at all. Arkansas, too, passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, but it included the condition that the changes wouldn’t go into effect until its bordering states changed their clocks permanently too. Other states that have approved legislation to enact year-long daylight saving time include Washington, Tennessee, Oregon, Nevada, and Alabama. Some Maryland legislators are interested, too. But none of the changes can go into effect without approval from the federal government.

So for now, all these states will be changing their clocks on Sunday along with the rest of us. Sorry!

(It appears other countries are also interested in getting rid of DST, or keeping it in place forever: Some members of the European Parliament, the governing body of the European Union, want to abolish clock changes there too.)

6) What would happen if daylight saving time were abolished? Or if it were extended forever?

It’s worth thinking about what would happen if Congress abolished daylight saving time (or kept it going all year long).

How might our patterns change? Blogger and cartographer Andy Woodruff decided to visualize this with a great series of maps.

The goal of these maps is to show how abolishing daylight saving time, extending it all year, or going with the status quo changes the number of days we have “reasonable” sunrise and sunset times.

Reasonable, as defined by Woodruff, is the sun rising at 7 am or earlier or setting after 5 pm (so one could, conceivably, spend some time in the sun before or after work).

This is what the map looks like under the status quo of twice-yearly clock shifts. A lot of people have unreasonable sunrise times (the dark spots) for much of the year:

Andy Woodruff

Here’s how things would change if daylight saving were abolished (that is, if we just stuck to the time set in the winter all year). It’s better, particularly on the sunrise end:

Andy Woodruff

And here’s what would happen if daylight saving were always in effect. The sunrise situation would actually be worse for most people. But many more people would enjoy after-work light — and there’s a strong argument to make that this after-work light is actually worth more. (More on that below.)

Andy Woodruff

(Note: The length of light we experience each day wouldn’t actually change; that’s determined by the tilt of Earth’s axis. But we would experience it in times more accommodating for our modern world. Be sure to check out the interactive version of these maps on Woodruff’s website.)

In 2015, Stromberg made the compelling case that the daylight saving time shift into the evening should be extended year-round. Having more light later could benefit us in a surprising number of ways:

• People engage in more leisure activities after work than beforehand, so we’d likely do more physical activity over sedentary leisure activities. Relatedly, studies show that kids get more exercise when the sun is out later in the evening.
• Stromberg also cites some evidence that robberies decrease when there’s more sun in the evening hours.
• There could be economic gains, since people “take short trips, and buy things after work — but not before — so a longer DST slightly increases sales,” he writes.

7) Is daylight saving time dangerous?

A bit. When we shift clocks forward one hour in the spring, many of us will lose that hour of sleep. In the days after daylight saving time starts, our biological clocks are a little bit off. It’s like the whole country has been given one hour of jet lag.

In September, the American Academy of Sleep medicine called for the end of daylight saving time clock changes.

“An abundance of accumulated evidence indicates that the acute transition from standard time to daylight saving time incurs significant public health and safety risks, including increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events, mood disorders, and motor vehicle crashes,” the academy wrote in a statement.

One hour of lost sleep sounds like a small change, but we humans are fragile, sensitive animals. Small disruptions in our sleep have been shown to alter basic indicators of our health and dull our mental edge.

And when our biological clocks are off, everything about us is out of sync. Our bodies run this tight schedule to try to keep up with our actions. Since we usually eat a meal after waking up, we produce the most insulin in the morning. We’re primed to metabolize breakfast before even taking a bite. It’s more efficient that way.

(There’s some good research that finds taking over-the-counter melatonin can help reset our body clocks to a new time. Read more about that here.)

Being an hour off schedule means our bodies are not prepared for our actions at any time of the day.

One example: driving.

In 1999, researchers at Johns Hopkins and Stanford universities wanted to find out what happens on the road when millions of drivers have their sleep disrupted.

Analyzing 21 years of fatal car crash data from the US National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, they found a very small, but significant, increase in road deaths on the Monday after the clock shift in the spring: The number of deadly accidents jumped to an average of 83.5 on the “spring forward” Monday compared with an average of 78.2 on a typical Monday.

And it seems it’s not just car accidents. Evidence has also mounted of an increase in incidences of workplace injuries and heart attacks in the days after we spring forward.

8) How can we abolish daylight saving time, or extend it year-round?

That’s easy! Well, not really: All it would take is an act of Congress. But I wouldn’t count on this happening anytime soon.

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A federal watchdog on Wednesday said the Small Business Administration has potentially approved billions of dollars of inappropriate disaster aid loans during the pandemic, triggering a forceful defense from the head of the agency.

The SBA's inspector general in a new report raised red flags about more than $78 billion in aid approved for businesses under the agency's Economic Injury Disaster Loan program — about 37 percent of the total amount doled out — and warned that billions might have been fraudulently obtained or directed to ineligible businesses.

Inspector General Hannibal "Mike" Ware said in the report that the SBA "lowered the guardrails" as it tried to expedite aid to businesses, resulting in lax oversight. Investigators cited $58 billion disbursed in multiple loans to businesses that used the same IP addresses, email addresses, bank accounts or the same physical addresses. About $13.4 billion went into accounts that differed from those listed on initial loan applications.

But SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza rejected the report, claiming that the findings and figures "rest on hasty, incomplete conclusions." The inspector general stood by the investigation, pointing to $450 million in 15,000 fraudulent loans that has already been seized, as well as the agency's decision to fire employees and contractors involved in approving loans to themselves or inappropriately influencing loan approval.

"SBA’s management continues to insist that its controls are robust despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary," the inspector general said in the report. "Our analysis of SBA’s Covid-19 EIDL loan and application data highlights strong indicators of ongoing fraudulent activity in the Covid-19 EIDL program."

The dispute was the latest example of the SBA clashing with federal oversight officials. The agency has also fought in recent months with investigators at the Government Accountability Office and with journalists seeking disclosure of federal loan recipients.

During the pandemic, the SBA has approved $192 billion of so-called EIDL loans plus $20 billion of related disaster grants. In addition, it issued $525 billion worth of forgivable loans under the Paycheck Protection Program that Congress established in March. It's an unprecedented level of activity for the agency.

While some fraud was expected, Ware has indicated that it may be happening at a greater degree during the pandemic. Speaking at a conference Wednesday hosted by the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders, Ware said he believed that SBA loan fraud is "more than normal" and it's "a bone of contention when I'm discussing this with the agency."

"I keep saying this is the very, teeny tip of the iceberg," he said.

In the report Wednesday, the inspector general pinned blame on the SBA and contractors it used to implement the EIDL program. The inspector general said an SBA team would approve batches of loans after review by a subcontractor "with little to no vetting of the loan information." The SBA initially set goals for loan officers to make final loan decisions on at least four applications per hour, and its subcontractor's system did not always flag duplicate loans, according to the report.

Investigators found that fraudsters understood that sending a "shower" of applications increased the likelihood that one or more would make it through the agency's safeguards. One applicant filled out 38 applications that were flagged as potentially problematic but at least two were disbursed for $384,600. One IP address used by applicants was used for 245 approved loans. One email address had 158 loans approved.

While the inspector general said the SBA had agreed to make some changes to its operations, Carranza dismissed the findings in a letter to Ware.

She said the inspector general "largely failed to investigate whether the 'potentially fraudulent loans' raised more than the minimum quantum of suspicion." She said the report's examples of shared IP addresses and email addresses involved loan applicants who relied on certified public accountants, law firms, loan packagers or religious and cultural centers to submit their loan applications.

"SBA’s analysis fatally undermines much of the draft report’s findings and shows that the draft report has significantly overstated the extent of “potential” Covid-19 EIDL fraud," she said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 943 points Wednesday as surging coronavirus cases forced more shutdown measures in Europe and raised fears of more restrictions in the U.S.

The S&P 500 slid 3.5%, its third straight loss and its biggest drop since June. The benchmark index is already down 5.6% this week, on track for its biggest weekly decline since March. That's when the market was in the midst of selling off as strict lockdowns around the world choked the economy into recession.

Investors are growing increasingly anxious that the economy will lose momentum should more shutdowns be imposed just as prospects for more economic support from Washington have dwindled as Election Day nears.

“Many people had come to believe we were at least stable, and now we’re having a second uptick, which throws potential GDP and everything else up in the air,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading & derivatives at Charles Schwab. ”I did not expect this level of volatility or this degree of a sell-off.”

The S&P 500 lost 119.65 points to 3,271.03. The Dow lost 943.24 points, or 3.4%, to 26,519.95. The Nasdaq composite slumped 426.48 points, or 3.7%, to 11,004.87. The selling was widespread, and 96% of stocks in the S&P 500 fell.

The selling in U.S. markets followed broad declines in Europe, where the French president announced tough measures to slow the virus’ spread and German officials agreed to impose a four-week partial lockdown. The measures may not be as stringent as the shutdown orders that swept the world early this year, but the worry is they could still hit the already weakened global economy.

Coronavirus counts are also climbing at a troubling rate in much of the United States, and the number of deaths and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are on the rise. Even if the most restrictive lockdowns don’t return, investors worry that the worsening pandemic could scare away customers of businesses regardless and sap away their profits.

Crude oil tumbled on worries that an economy already weakened by the virus would consume even less energy and allow excess supplies to build higher. Benchmark U.S. crude dropped 5.7% to $37.39 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 5.4% to $39.12 per barrel.

Instead, investors headed into the safety of U.S. government bonds. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 0.77% from 0.79% late Tuesday. It was as high as 0.87% last week.

A measure of fear in the stock market touched its highest level since June, when the market suddenly tumbled amid concerns that a “second wave” of coronavirus infections had arrived. The VIX measures how much volatility investors expect from the S&P 500, and it climbed 20.8% Wednesday.

Even the continued parade of better-than-expected reports on corporate profits for the summer failed to shift the momentum.

Microsoft, the second-biggest company in the S&P 500, reported stronger profit and revenue for its latest quarter than expected. That’s typically good for a stock, but Microsoft nevertheless slumped 5%. It gave a forecast for the current quarter that was relatively in line with Wall Street forecasts, but analysts noted some caveats in it.

UPS fell 8.8% after also reporting better-than-expected earnings, though it said the outlook for its business is too cloudy due to the pandemic to offer any forecasts for its revenue or profits in the current quarter.

Companies broadly have not been getting as big a pop in their stock prices as they typically do after reporting healthier-than-expected profits. Analysts say that suggests good news on profits has already been built into stock prices and that the market’s focus is elsewhere.

Investors' hopes that Congress and the White House could soon offer more big support for the economy as it struggles through the pandemic have largely faded. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have continued their talks, but investors see little chance of a deal happening before Election Day next week.

Economists say the economy likely needs such aid after the expiration of the last round of supplemental unemployment benefits and other stimulus approved by Washington earlier this year.

Uncertainty about the upcoming presidential election has also been pushing markets around.

“The market never likes uncertainty," said Stephanie Roth, portfolio macro analyst at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. "People are just taking profits ahead of the election, to some extent.”

The race seems be getting tighter than it was just a few weeks ago, said Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group. “It has markets somewhat unnerved that the prospects of a contested election are back in the mix,” he said.

Cox said he expects more calm in the markets in November after the election passes and some of the uncertainty over a new aid package fades.

“Aid is coming regardless. There’ll be no political motivation to hold it back after the election,” he said. “There’s plenty of desire to get money out to people so I think it will happen one way or another in November.”

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has a single-digit lead over President Donald Trump in Georgia, according to a new survey of the Southern battleground.

A Monmouth University poll released Wednesday — six days from Election Day — reports that 50 percent of Georgia registered voters prefer Biden, while 45 percent favor Trump.

A Monmouth model forecasting a high level of voter turnout shows Biden leading Trump by 4 percentage points, 50-46 percent. Another model based on lower turnout tightens Biden’s lead over Trump to 2 points, 50-48 percent.

In the previous version of the Monmouth Georgia poll, published last month, Trump narrowly led Biden among registered voters, 47-46 percent; under the high likely turnout model, 48-46 percent; and under the low likely turnout model, 50-45 percent.

According to the RealClearPolitics average of recent Georgia surveys, conducted from Oct. 8-23, Trump leads Biden by less than 1 percentage point in the state.

The latest Monmouth Georgia poll also shows Democrats running slightly ahead of their Republican opponents in the state’s pair of Senate races.

Incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue trails Democrat Jon Ossoff by 3 percentage points among registered voters, 49-46 percent. The high likely turnout model has Ossoff leading, 49-47 percent, as does the low likely turnout model, 49-48 percent.

A plurality of registered voters, 41 percent, support Democrat Raphael Warnock in the special election for incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s seat. Loeffler has 21 percent support, and Republican Doug Collins has 18 percent.

Warnock still leads under the high likely turnout model, with 41 percent support to Loeffler’s 22 percent and Collins’ 19 percent. And under the low likely turnout model, Warnock has 42 percent support, Loeffler has 22 percent, and Collins has 20 percent.

The two Senate contests — either of which could determine whether Democrats retake control of the chamber — will advance to runoffs in January 2021 if no candidate wins a majority of the vote next week.

The Monmouth poll was conducted Oct. 23-27, surveying 504 Georgia registered voters with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

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After a surprisingly sluggish weekend for polling, the floodgates have opened, with a mix of high-quality polls, low-quality polls and pretty much everything in between. And although there are some outliers in both directions, they tell a fairly consistent story, overall: A steady race nationally, perhaps with some gains for Joe Biden in the Midwest.

Let’s dive right in. Following our rules from my colleague Geoffrey Skelley’s post earlier this week, we’re going to look at every poll where at least half of the survey took place after last week’s debate, with a comparison to the most recent pre-debate survey by the same firm. If the pollster hasn’t surveyed a state before, we’ll make the comparison based on what the FiveThirtyEight polling average said in that state as of the night of the debate (Oct. 22) instead.

As an aside, I set a cutoff for polls as of 7 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. (More will probably have filtered into the averages by the time that you’re reading this.) We’ll rotate through the four major regions of the country — the South, the West, the Midwest and the Northeast. But first, here are the post-debate national polls:

National polls since the final debate

Polls conducted entirely (or mostly) after the Oct. 22 debate compared to the last poll from the same pollster

		Biden lead
	Pollster	Now	Before	change
US	Change Research	+8.0	+10.0	-2.0
US	CNN/SSRS	+12.0	+16.0	-4.0
US	Economist/YouGov	+11.0	+9.0	+2.0
US	Global Marketing Reserch Services	+14.0	+16.0	-2.0
US	Hart Research/Public Opinion Strategies	+11.0	+9.0	+2.0
US	IBD/TIPP	+5.0	+5.0	+0.0
US	J.L. Parnters	+14.0	+10.0	+4.0
US	Leger	+8.0	+9.0	-1.0
US	Morning Consult	+9.0	+9.0	+0.0
US	Qriously	+10.0	+12.0	-2.0
US	Rasmussen Reports	-1.0	+3.0	-4.0
US	Redfield & Wilton Strategies	+10.0	+11.0	-1.0
US	Reuters/Ipsos	+10.0	+8.0	+2.0
US	RMG Research	+7.0	+8.0	-1.0
US	SurveyMonkey	+4.0	+6.0	-2.0
US	Yahoo News/YouGov	+12.0	+11.0	+1.0
US	Average	+9.0	+9.5	-0.5

Source: polls

On average, Biden leads by 9 percentage points using a simple average of post-debate national polls, which matches his 9-point lead in our fancy-schmancy official FiveThirtyEight national average.

It’s a bit of a weird mix of polls, though, with more quantity than quality. The only two fully live-caller national polls in here are from CNN and CNBC/Hart Research/Public Opinion Strategies, which show Biden leading by 12 points and 11 points, respectively. On the one hand, the trendlines aren’t so bad for Trump in those live-caller polls. He trailed by 16 points in CNN’s previous national poll and by 9 points in the past Hart Research/Public Opinion Strategies poll (or by 11 if you prefer to compare it to the prior NBC/Wall Street Journal national poll, which uses the same polling team).

[Live Updates: We’re Tracking The Vote And Voting Problems]

On the other hand, the higher-quality national polls are showing worse results for Trump than the lower-quality polls, which is rarely a good sign. More highly rated online firms — such as YouGov, Morning Consult and Ipsos — show Trump trailing by margins ranging from 9 to 12 points.

At least some of the fluctuations in our national polling average seem to reflect shifts in the ratio of high-quality and low-quality surveys. This can go through cycles, and recently the higher-quality firms have mostly been concentrating on state polling. Most of them will release their final national polls soon, though, and it wouldn’t be surprising if, following CNN and CNBC’s example, a few more of them show double-digit leads for Biden.

Something else to note: Although there’s been a slight decline in Biden’s national polls since the debate, a majority of state polls show his position improving. To be more precise, Biden has gained 0.7 percentage points in the average state poll since the debate, while he’s lost 0.5 points in the average national poll. That brings the national and state polls into better alignment after a period where national polls suggested that Biden led by 10 to 11 points but state polls were more consistent with a lead of about 9 points instead.

Let’s start our review of the regions with the South, where there’s been a lot of polling over the past couple of days:

Polls of Southern states since the final debate

Polls conducted entirely (or mostly) after the Oct. 22 debate compared to the last poll from the same pollster

		Biden lead
	Pollster	Now	Before	change
FL	Florida Atlantic	+2.0	+4.0	-2.0
FL	Reuters/Ipsos	+1.5	+4.5	-3.0
FL	Susquehanna Polling & Research	-5.0	+4.0	-9.0
GA	Civiqs	+5.0	+3.0	+2.0
GA	Monmouth University	+3.0	-3.5	+6.5
MS	Civiqs*	-14.0	-15.0	+1.0
NC	Gravis Marketing	+3.0	-3.0	+6.0
NC	Harper Polling	+1.0	-1.0	+2.0
NC	Public Policy Polling	+4.0	+4.0	+0.0
NC	Reuters/Ipsos	+1.0	+2.5	-1.5
NC	RMG Research	+1.0	+2.0	-1.0
NC	SurveyUSA	+0.0	+5.0	-5.0
SC	East Carolina University	-8.0	-12.0	+4.0
SC	Starboard Communications*	-7.0	-7.0	+0.0
TX	Data for Progress	+1.0	+1.0	+0.0
TX	NYT Upshot/Siena	-4.0	-3.0	-1.0
	Average	-1.0	-0.9	-0.1

* The firm had not previously polled the state and the change is based on the FiveThirtyEight average as of the Oct. 22 debate.

Source: polls

It’s hard to tell a coherent story here because every state in the region seems to be marching to its own fight song. Biden’s gotten some great numbers in Georgia since the debate, but he’s had some terrible ones in Florida. North Carolina is somewhere in between, with polls variously suggesting that he’s gaining or losing ground.

Do I buy that there are these microfluctations between neighboring states? I’m not sure that I do, particularly since you have a different mix of pollsters from state to state. Florida and Georgia could use one or two more high-quality polls.

For the time being, though, Biden’s small lead in our Georgia polling average (+1.4) nearly equals his lead in Florida (also +1.4) and North Carolina (+2.1). That means Georgia needs to be taken seriously as a plausible — if unlikely — tipping-point state. It’s going to be the focus of a lot of resource expenditures over the final few days of the campaign, especially since it also has two competitive Senate races. Texas is a step or two away from the rest of the Southern group, meanwhile, as Trump leads in our polling average by 1.8 points there.

Next up on our whirlwind tour of America … the West:

Polls of Western states since the final debate

Polls conducted entirely (or mostly) after the Oct. 22 debate compared to the last poll from the same pollster

		Biden lead
	Pollster	Now	Before	change
AZ	Gravis Marketing	+4.0	+2.0	+2.0
AZ	Ipsos	+1.0	+3.5	-2.5
AZ	Justice Collaborative Institute*	+6.0	+4.0	+2.0
AZ	OH Predictive Insights	+3.0	+3.5	-0.5
AZ	Patinkin Research Strategies*	+7.0	+4.0	+3.0
MT	Public Policy Polling	-2.0	-6.0	+4.0
NV	NYT/Siena College	+6.0	+6.0	+0.0
	Average	+3.6	+2.4	+1.1

* The firm had not previously polled the state and the change is based on the FiveThirtyEight average as of the Oct. 22 debate.

Source: Polls

This is a decent set of polls for Biden, including in Arizona, where Biden’s lead has oscillated between 3 and 5 points in our polling average for most of the year. It’s in the lower-to-mid part of that range now, at 3.5 points in our official polling average, although the raw average of post-debate Arizona polls is slightly better for him at +4.2.

I realize this might seem like splitting hairs, but Arizona is an important state for Biden, insofar as it’s probably his best backup option if he loses Pennsylvania. (If Biden loses Pennsylvania but wins Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, he’d also need to find one more electoral vote somewhere to break a 269-269 Electoral College tie, but he’d probably get that in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, where he’s favored.)

In a world where Arizona is polling at Biden +5, it’s really almost as though he has a Plan A1 (Pennsylvania) and Plan A2 (Arizona plus NE-2). That would make his map more robust. In a world where Arizona is Biden +2 or Biden +3, conversely, it doesn’t really stand out from his other backup options, such as North Carolina and Florida, so it would be as though Biden has one Plan A (Pennsylvania) and a bunch of Plan Cs.

Now to the Midwest:

Polls of Midwestern states since the final debate

Polls conducted entirely (or mostly) after the Oct. 22 debate compared to the last poll from the same pollster

		Biden lead
	Pollster	Now	Before	change
IA	RABA Research	+4.0	+2.0	+2.0
MI	ABC News/Washington Post*	+7.0	+8.0	-1.0
MI	Glengariff Group	+8.0	+9.0	-1.0
MI	Gravis Marketing	+13.0	+9.0	+4.0
MI	NYT Upshot/Siena	+8.0	+8.0	+0.0
MI	Reuters/Ipsos	+9.5	+8.0	+1.5
MN	Gravis Marketing	+14.0	+16.0	-2.0
WI	ABC News/Washington Post	+17.0	+6.0	+11.0
WI	Gravis Marketing	+11.0	+8.0	+3.0
WI	Marquette Law School	+5.0	+5.0	+0.0
	Average	+9.6	+7.9	+1.7

* The firm had not previously polled the state and the change is based on the FiveThirtyEight average as of the Oct. 22 debate.

Source: polls

FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich covered this region this morning, so I’ll be brief here. This is the one part of the country where you can’t really say the race is steady; instead, this has been a strong set of polling for Biden, and he’s gained an average of 1.7 points in surveys in this region versus the pre-debate polls.

No, Trump probably doesn’t trail in Wisconsin by 17 points, as he does in the ABC News/Washington Post poll. (Good pollsters publish their outliers instead of sitting on them, and sometimes they turn out not to be outliers at all.) But average the ABC News poll with the three other post-debate polls of Wisconsin, and Biden is still ahead by 10.5 points there.

Biden’s polling gains may reflect that the COVID-19 outbreak in the Upper Midwest is bad right now, especially in Wisconsin. There is some evidence that the polls tend to shift against Trump following spikes in COVID-19 cases in a state, potentially a foreboding indicator for Trump as COVID-19 cases are also now rising sharply in many other states.

Finally, to the Northeast:

Polls of Northeastern states since the final debate

Polls conducted entirely (or mostly) after the Oct. 22 debate compared to the last poll from the same pollster

		Biden lead
	Pollster	Now	Before	change
ME	Colby College	+13.0	+11.0	+2.0
PA	Civiqs	+7.0	+6.0	+1.0
PA	Gravis Marketing	+7.0	+3.0	+4.0
PA	InsiderAdvantage	-3.0	+3.0	-6.0
PA	Reuters/Ipsos	+5.0	+4.0	+1.0
	Average	+5.8	+5.4	+0.4

Source: polls

By the Northeast, as you can see from the chart above, I really just mean … Pennsylvania, plus one stray poll of Maine. This region has been underpolled. There haven’t been any live-caller polls of Pennsylvania since the debate, and the online and IVR polls show highly disparate results there. New Hampshire has had no post-debate polling at all, meanwhile.

We go back and forth here at FiveThirtyEight about whether Pennsylvania counts as part of the Northeast or the Midwest. I’ve usually been a proponent of the theory that for political purposes, Pennsylvania behaves like a Midwestern state. There are some important geographic, demographic and cultural differences between Pennsylvania and the Upper Midwest, however, and this year, the polling in Pennsylvania hasn’t tracked the numbers in Wisconsin and Michigan that well. Pennsylvania is also not currently experiencing as bad of a COVID-19 outbreak as those other states. So it may be less correlated with them than usual.

But one way or another, the final round of high-quality, live-caller polls in Pennsylvania is likely to make a big difference to our model. Pennsylvania is by far the most likely tipping-point state. If Biden gets up to, say, a 6- or 7-point lead there, he’ll be in a much safer position overall in the Electoral College than if he gets knocked down to a 4-point lead here instead. More polling of the Keystone State is surely to come soon.

Countering President Donald Trump’s false suggestion Tuesday that tallying votes after Election Day is unlawful, a top official at the U.S. Federal Election Commission said that in fact “counting ballots—all of ’em—is the appropriate, proper, and very legal way to determine who won.”

“An election is not a reality show with a big reveal at the end,” Ellen Weintraub, an election attorney and a Democratic commissioner at the FEC, tweeted in response to Trump’s insistence that a winner be officially declared on the night of November 3.

“All we get on Election Night are projections from TV networks,” Weintraub noted. “We never have official results on Election Night.”

An election is not a reality show with a big reveal at the end. All we get on Election Night are projections from TV networks. We *never* have official results on Election Night.

Counting ballots – all of 'em – is the appropriate, proper, and very legal way to determine who won. https://t.co/jG8eX7XNwZ

— Ellen L Weintraub (@EllenLWeintraub) October 28, 2020

Trump’s comments Tuesday came amid growing fears that the president could attempt to take advantage of slower-than-usual vote counting—which is expected due to the unprecedented surge in mail-in voting amid the pandemic—to falsely declare victory on Election Night and dismiss as illegitimate legally submitted ballots counted after November 3.

Those concerns were intensified by Trump-nominated Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s falsehood-riddled concurring opinion in the Supreme Court’s late Monday ruling that barred the battleground state of Wisconsin from extending its absentee ballot deadline. The decision means that ballots received by Wisconsin officials after Election Day cannot be counted, even if they are postmarked by November 3.

In his opinion, Kavanaugh declared that absentee ballots arriving after Election Day—which is allowed in more than a dozen states—could “flip the results of the election.” But as Justice Elena Kagan noted in her dissent (pdf), “there are no results to ‘flip’ until all valid votes are counted.”

“And nothing could be more ‘suspicio[us]’ or ‘improp[er]’ than refusing to tally votes once the clock strikes 12 on Election Night,” Kagan added. “To suggest otherwise, especially in these fractious times, is to disserve the electoral process.”

Slate‘s Mark Joseph Stern warned late Tuesday that “by deploying so many falsehoods in his 18-page opinion, Kavanaugh sent a signal to lower court judges: Uphold voter suppression at all costs, even if you have to ignore or contort the factual record to do it.”

“Trump’s dozens of hackish judicial nominees will hear this message loud and clear,” Stern wrote. “At least one member of the Supreme Court is willing to construct a fantasy world that is utterly detached from our grim reality of mass disenfranchisement. If we cannot trust the justices to tell the truth now, why should we believe them if they decide the election next week?”

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It has become rote, when nearing an election, for Republican radicals to momentarily feign a bit of moderation in the hopes that less-radical voters will forget in those last months all the egregious and radical stuff that they had been doing through the rest of their tenures. Not the Trump crowd, though. Staff an administration with paranoid ultra-conservative megafreaks and tell them to cut the brake lines, and it's a sure bet you're going to careen into Election Day with no brakes.

One of the more overtly radical actions undertaken by Team Trump this last year has been the attempted reformation of Voice of America and its parent agency, the U.S. Agency of Global Media (USAGM), into a partisan-led pro-Trump propaganda bucket. To this end, new Trump-selected USAGM Chief Michael Pack and subordinates have been mounting numerous inquiries aimed at pushing out Voice of America employees deemed insufficiently supportive of Dear Leader, including Voice of America White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman. Pack, a Steve Bannon associate described as "paranoid" in his hunt for anti-Trump witches among the agency's reporters, was put into the position to do exactly that.

There is, however, a problem: The purge of insufficiently Trump-loyal reporters technically is a huge violation of the agency's own rules and regulations, which required a "firewall" between the agency's political appointees and USAGM's federally run news agencies to prevent exactly the kind of partisan vengeance-seeking and hackery Pack is engaged in. In premise, Voice of America and other USAGM products sell themselves to the world as neutral, factual news sources unhindered by the propaganda-laced, government-enforced reportage of authoritarian governments, and maintaining a reputation for factual neutrality is essential to the agency's mission.

In September, agency whistleblowers stepped forward to file a claim with the State Department inspector general charging him with violating those rules. Now Pack is responding to those complaints.

His response? Michael Pack has unilaterally rescinded the "firewall" rule. As of this Monday, Pack says, it no longer exists.

By way of explanation, Pack offered up a typically self-serving interpretation of events. He complains that the rule was the product of the "final hours of existence" of the agency's Broadcasting Board of Governors, which Pack himself shuttered shortly afterwards. He also asserts that the rule is unconstitutional, and based on "flawed" reasoning, and "made the agency difficult to manage," and take-your-pick. And, importantly, the rule "threatened constitutional values because the Constitution gives the President broad latitude in directing the foreign policy of the United States."

If a president decides that sycophantic polishing of his own nether regions is now the official foreign policy of the United States, then by God it would be unconstitutional not to enforce it.

The short version, however, is that Pack now asserts total authority in managing the agency's reporting, including the right to prevent stories from being published and the authority to himself decide which stories represent "biased reporting." There were rules against that; now there aren't, because the Steve Bannon-allied "paranoid" Trump-obsessed movement ideologue has declared them to be inconvenient.

Again, this is the sort of thing that cleverer hyperpartisans would generally do after an election, effectively running out the clock on public outrage before the next go-round. The same considerations do not seem to rattle around current Republican heads, though. It seems to be a lack of impulse control; Pack probably knows full well this makes him look cheap and crooked, but like a certain head of the postal service retooling the agency in ways that help The Shipping Company He Holds Stock In, he can't help himself.

If Trump loses, expect these individuals to set fire to each and every agency rulebook in the months before their replacements take over—and try to make off with everything that isn't nailed down. Subtlety isn't in their repertoire.

Microsoft has released a Windows update that removes Adobe's Flash Player before it reaches end of support on December 31, 2020. ZDNet reports: Update KB4577586 is part of Microsoft's effort to follow through with plans it announced along with Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Mozilla in 2017 to end support for Flash by December 2020. The Flash-removing update is available for all supported versions of Windows 10 and Windows Server, as well as Windows 8.1. This new update removes Flash Player from Windows devices and cannot be uninstalled, Microsoft says in a new support note. However, it isn't rolling out via Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) just yet, and the update needs to be downloaded and installed from the Microsoft Update Catalog. It will become available to WSUS in early 2021, but admins can import it to WSUS manually today. Microsoft is releasing the Flash-removing update ahead of the end of support so that enterprise customers can test the impact on business applications when Flash is removed from a Windows PC or server. But the company says it will continue to deliver Flash security updates until support ends. Microsoft has also detailed two methods that users and admins can follow to continue using Flash Player after the update is installed. Users can reset a device to an earlier system restore point. However, users need to explicitly enable this feature and a system restore point must have been created on the Windows device before the update is applied. The other option is to reinstall Windows without applying the update.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers have extracted the secret key that encrypts updates to an assortment of Intel CPUs, a feat that could have wide-ranging consequences for the way the chips are used and, possibly, the way they're secured. The key makes it possible to decrypt the microcode updates Intel provides to fix security vulnerabilities and other types of bugs. Having a decrypted copy of an update may allow hackers to reverse engineer it and learn precisely how to exploit the hole it's patching. The key may also allow parties other than Intel -- say a malicious hacker or a hobbyist -- to update chips with their own microcode, although that customized version wouldn't survive a reboot. "At the moment, it is quite difficult to assess the security impact," independent researcher Maxim Goryachy said in a direct message. "But in any case, this is the first time in the history of Intel processors when you can execute your microcode inside and analyze the updates." Goryachy and two other researchers -- Dmitry Sklyarov and Mark Ermolov, both with security firm Positive Technologies -- worked jointly on the project. The key can be extracted for any chip -- be it a Celeron, Pentium, or Atom -- that's based on Intel's Goldmont architecture. In a statement, Intel officials wrote: "The issue described does not represent security exposure to customers, and we do not rely on obfuscation of information behind red unlock as a security measure. In addition to the INTEL-SA-00086 mitigation, OEMs following Intel's manufacturing guidance have mitigated the OEM specific unlock capabilities required for this research. The private key used to authenticate microcode does not reside in the silicon, and an attacker cannot load an unauthenticated patch on a remote system."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The numbers are off the charts, and it's already changing how campaigns think.

They thought they were being politically clever. The result is that they're headed for defeat and at least 226,000 Americans are dead.

Trump is falling well behind his 2016 margins among White voters nationally.