Getting out the vote

Eyeing all those long voting lines, as well as the polls, President Trump is increasingly becoming concerned about his re-election prospects, which is why he is looking to cast blame preemptively in case things don't go his way. Today, his target was the Supreme Court. Disappointed by high court decisions this week on extended delivery deadlines for mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, two critical swing states, he tweeted this morning, "If Sleepy Joe Biden is actually elected President, the 4 Justices (plus1) that helped make such a ridiculous win possible would be relegated to sitting on not only a heavily PACKED COURT, but probably a REVOLVING COURT as well." —The Hill

• — Minnesota. Siding with Republicans, a federal appeals court yesterday ruled that Minnesota's plan to count absentee ballots received after Election Day is illegal. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals said the deadline extension was an unconstitutional maneuver, stating, "However well-intentioned and appropriate from a policy perspective in the context of a pandemic during a presidential election, it is not the province of a state executive official to re-write the state's election code." —Reuters
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• — Pennsylvania. Here's why folks in the Keystone State are working so hard to ensure that ballots received late are duly counted. Timely mail delivery across the state took a drastic turn for the worse in the last two weeks, according to U.S. Postal Service data filed Wednesday in federal court. In Philadelphia, 42% of all first-class mail is taking longer than five days to be delivered. By comparison, that figure was 33% two weeks ago and just 13% in January, before a series of changes handed down by the Trump Administration led to a national slowdown. —Penn Live
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• — Vermont. Vermont Secretary of State James Condos criticized Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's claim that the state made no changes to its ordinary election rules this year. Pointing to several measures the state has taken to accommodate mail-in ballots, he said, "We have enough work on our hands combatting foreign disinformation attacks on our democratic process, all done in an attempt to weaken voter confidence in the integrity of our elections. We should not need to do the same with our own Supreme Court justices or president." —The Hill

Beijing Ross?

Wilbur Ross, the investor-turned-Commerce secretary, has long been accused of ethical violations because of his failure to extricate himself from his business ties while serving in the White House Cabinet. New documents show that Ross' potential conflicts of interest around Chinese business are even greater than previously known.

• — In Chinese corporate documents obtained by Foreign Policy, Ross is listed as serving on the board of a Chinese joint venture until January 2019—nearly two years into his term as Commerce secretary. That joint venture was formed in 2008 among the Chinese state-owned Huaneng Capital Services, the U.S. management company Invesco, and Ross' firm WL Ross & Co.
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• — When the U.S.-China trade war started heating up in the summer of 2018, and Beijing and Washington levied increasingly onerous tariffs on each other, Ross was simultaneously overseeing the trade war as Commerce secretary and serving on the board of a joint venture in partnership with a Chinese state-owned firm. 
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• — Ross' position as Commerce secretary allowed him to influence the direction of the trade war and America's global trade policies. While there is no evidence that Ross directly benefited from the joint venture, entanglements like this have traditionally been seen as potential violations of the national interest. —Foreign Policy

Waldman: Fixing the corruption eruption

"In the wake of this presidency, we'll need a new approach to constrain any future President Trump (sorry if I just made you spit out your coffee). It will probably have to turn norms into strict rules, and provide genuine punishments for those who transgress. And it may involve limiting the authority of the president. We'll have to do it, because Trump has shown us how wide and deep corruption can go. And it's only been four years; imagine what he could do with four more." —Paul Waldman in The Washington Post

Ed. Note: Paul Waldman is a Washington Post columnist covering politics.

What's behind the Hunter Biden conspiracy

Months before the New York Post story about a leak of files purportedly from Hunter Biden's laptop was published, a fake "intelligence" document about him went viral on the right-wing internet, asserting an elaborate conspiracy theory involving former Vice President Joe Biden's son and business in China. The 64-page document that was later disseminated by close associates of President Trump appears to be the work of a fake "intelligence firm" called Typhoon Investigations.

• — The "author" of the document, supposedly a Swiss security analyst named Martin Aspen, is a fabricated identity, according to analysis by disinformation researchers, who also concluded that Aspen's profile picture was created with an artificial intelligence face generator. One of the original posters of the document, a blogger and professor named Christopher Balding, took credit for writing parts of it when asked about it and said Aspen does not exist.
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• — Despite the document's questionable authorship and anonymous sourcing, its claims that Hunter Biden has a problematic connection to the Communist Party of China have been used by people who oppose the Chinese government, as well as by far-right influencers, to accuse Joe Biden of being beholden to the Chinese.


• — The document's origins haven't stopped the right-wing media from pushing the story. Earlier this week, Fox News' Tucker Carlson interviewed former Hunter Biden associate Tony Bobulinski, who said he is being questioned by the FBI over his connections to the Biden Family. —NBC News

Hess: The real test of democracy comes after Election Day

"In the coming years, there will be plenty of work for citizens to do with state legislatures and Congress to improve confidence in elections. But for now, the best defense of democracy is to aid election officials and voters when and where you can, and to inoculate the public against misplaced fears of voter fraud." —Douglas Hess in The Hill

Ed. Note: Douglas Hess is an assistant professor of political science at Grinnell College.

MORE: Next week's 10 most important ballot proposals for bettering democracy —The Fulcrum

Around the world

A judge in Barcelona, Spain, is probing possible links between some of the promoters of Catalonia's 2017 attempt to declare independence from the rest of Spain with an alleged misinformation campaign and overall effort to destabilize Europe linked to Russia. "Russian interference as a geopolitical strategy was a fact during the fall of 2017, when (the Russians) spread fake news and disinformation," Judge Joaquín Aguirre said, citing online items backing the Catalan separatists spread by Russian news platforms. —Associated Press

• — Myanmar. More than 1.5 million people in Myanmar's conflict-ridden areas have been politically disenfranchised after the country's election commission scrapped voting in those areas in next month's general election. The vast majority of those affected are in Rakhine State, where 1.2 million people will no longer be able to go to the ballot box on Nov. 9. —Al Jazeera
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• — Tanzania. The U.S. Embassy in Tanzania has expressed "serious doubts" about the credibility of the country's presidential election, and the leading opposition candidate is urging other nations not to recognize the results. Wednesday's poll, in which voters were electing a president and lawmakers, was marred by allegations of arrests of candidates and protesters, restrictions on agents of political parties to access polling stations, multiple voting, pre-ticking of ballots, and widespread blocking of social media. —CNN
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• — United Kingdom. The Labour Party has suspended Jeremy Corbyn "for a failure to retract" his reaction to a highly critical report on anti-Semitism. A human rights watchdog found Labour responsible for "unlawful" harassment and discrimination during Corbyn's four-and-a-half years as party leader. Corbyn said the scale of anti-Semitism within Labour had been "dramatically overstated" by opponents. He has called the suspension "political" and promised to "strongly contest" it. —BBC

Nichols: Why conservatives should reject Trump

"This is not some nebulous appeal to history. History will not have to judge Trump; he is in the dock even now because we already know everything we need to know about him. We know that the 45th president is a compulsively dishonest and emotionally unstable man, compromised by foreign powers and hostile to the basic rules of American democracy. We know that he surrounded himself with an entourage of liars and opportunists. We know that he has trampled on our laws, our Constitution, and our traditions for his personal gain." —Tom Nichols in USA Today

Ed. Note: Tom Nichols is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and is the author of "The Death of Expertise."

MORE: The Economist Ed Board: Why it has to be Biden —The Economist

You Can Be ABCs

One six-year-old in Memphis, Tenn., has a very bright future ahead of him. In a video that has gone viral on social media, young Sam White raps about possible career opportunities for each letter of the alphabet. 

• — From gastroenterologist to intelligence officer, Sam sings about what each occupation entails, like, "You can be an 'M': mobile app developer, like the people that made Fortnite." His dad, Bobby White, who co-wrote "You Can Be ABCs," is seen dancing in the background.
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• — "I want Sam to know about all the amazing opportunities that are out there waiting for him," Bobby said. "Kids learning early on to be passionate about careers sets them up to do better in school because they are working toward something."
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• — At the moment, Sam, a Lego whiz, has his sights set on a degree in architecture. "I like to build," he explains. But he's also open to becoming a governor or President of the United States. Go for it, Sam! —Yahoo News

China is the 2020 bogeyman of fear spewed by the GOP. I don't carry water for China, but a lot of folks who spew the fear in the GOP actually do, starting with the Trumps, members of the Cabinet, and on and on. Face it, we live in an interconnected world, and China is a major player in it.

For instance, much of the Trump gear is made in China. Mitch McConnell's wife and her family also have major dealings in China. Ivanka Trump has several Chinese trademarks, and many of her products are made in China. Many folks, including the Trumps, have investments in China. Yet since it is Halloween, any Democrats who do business with, or in, China are evil, frightening, and so on. You can't fix stupid. —Bill T., Arizona

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