Bullying earns praise from POTUS

Holding out hope for a win tomorrow, Donald Trump rallied in several key states this weekend...and blocked supporters of Democratic challenger Joe Biden from doing the same in at least two locations. Biden-supporting events were canceled in Texas and Georgia because of intimidation tactics by hordes of Trump supporters, who nearly ran a Biden campaign tour bus off the road outside San Antonio, Tex. Both Trump and his son, Don Jr., celebrated and encouraged the action. Trump also praised supporters who blocked traffic on a New York bridge and a New Jersey highway. The FBI is investigating the campaign bus incident. —CBS News

• — "Going in with our lawyers." If he can't win through threats, he'll try to do it by invalidating votes. Trump is reportedly planning to declare victory tomorrow night if it looks like he's "ahead," even though the Electoral College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes. Trump said he will immediately launch a legal challenge if the vote doesn't go his way, and he has repeatedly attacked the Supreme Court in recent days for not blocking the counting of ballots postmarked but not received by Nov. 3. —The Guardian
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• — GOP loses bid to block thousands of Texans' votes. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Houston has tossed a last-minute Republican-led challenge today to invalidate nearly 127,000 drive-thru ballots cast in Harris Co., Tex. On Sunday, the Texas state Supreme Court denied a similar petition on drive-thru ballots. Roughly 10% of the votes cast in person during the early voting period have been cast at those sites, in an accommodation made amid the coronavirus pandemic. —Associated Press
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• — Top-priority mail. In another election-related ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, Wash., has ordered the U.S. Postal Service to take "extraordinary measures" to deliver ballots in time to be counted in Wisconsin and Michigan. Data presented in court shows on-time delivery of ballots sent by voters was too slow in both battleground states. —Associated Press

Trump flirts with firing Fauci

At a Trump rally in Florida yesterday, the packed crowd erupted into a chant of "Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!" The president let the chorus grow louder for about 20 seconds, pondering the request that he dismiss White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's leading infectious-disease expert. "Don't tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election," Trump finally said to cheers. A couple days earlier, Fauci said the U.S. needs an "abrupt change" in its approach to the virus, which has killed at least 230,000 Americans. "We're in for a whole lot of hurt," he said. "It's not a good situation." —The Washington Post

• — "Asking for trouble." Fauci has criticized the Trump campaign for continuing to hold large rallies. Here's why: 18 Trump campaign rallies "ultimately resulted" in more than 30,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and "likely led to more than 700 deaths," researchers at Stanford University have concluded in a study. The Trump campaign has come under fire for being lax about mask requirements and refusing to adhere to social distancing at its events. —Axios
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• — Healthcare workers pushed to brink. As the U.S. adds a new COVID-19 case every second, hospitals from West Texas to Wisconsin are overwhelmed with the soaring number of critically ill Americans. But unlike the spring surge, it’s not a lack of hospital beds, therapies, or equipment that worry managers, but the depleted and exhausted staffs needed to care for those who need life-sustaining treatment. —USA Today
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• — Russia makes another White House friend. White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas apologized yesterday for doing an interview with Russia's state-backed RT network, saying he "was unaware they are a registered foreign agent." The international network financed by the Russian government is registered as a foreign agent, meaning its content is labeled as propaganda attempting to influence U.S. public opinion, policy, and laws. —NPR

Pohl: Democracy needs honesty and facts

"There are few places left in the U.S. for discussion of contentious political concepts and possible solutions. And this election campaign has shown us the result of that, with more and more people only trusting their own little social media bubbles to provide them with information. This has had disastrous consequences, leaving the door wide open for conspiracy theorists and enemies of democracy." —Ines Pohl in Deutsche Welle

Ed. Note: Ines Pohl heads the Washington bureau at Deutsche Welle.

MORE: Richard Wolffe: Trump has gone a long way toward hindering democracy in other countries —The Guardian

Russia loves Q

Not really surprising, right? As it grows, the QAnon conspiracy theory is helping to sow confusion and discord, which fits right in with Russia's goal of destabilizing the U.S. Turns out, Russian government-backed social media accounts were nurturing QAnon in its infancy, according to Twitter executives and archives of tweets from 4,000 suspended accounts.

• — The original posts associated with QAnon appeared in late October 2017, purporting to be from a Trump insider with "Q" security clearance, who said Hillary Clinton faced arrest and her allies were running a massive child-sex ring.
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• — From November 2017 on, QAnon was the most frequent hashtag tweeted by accounts that Twitter has since identified as Russian-backed, with the term used some 17,000 times.


• — The trove shows that some of the Russian accounts promoted one of QAnon's earliest and most important proponents, conservative video blogger Tracy Diaz, as far back as April 2017. She soon began amassing undisclosed donors and now has more than 10 million video views on YouTube. —Reuters

Diamond: A renewal of American democracy

"Today, we are far closer to a breakdown than most democracy experts, myself included, would have dared anticipate just a few years ago. Even if we are spared the worst, it is long past time to renew the mechanisms of our democracy, learn from other democracies around the world, and again make our republic a shining city on a hill." —Larry Diamond in The New York Times

Ed. Note: Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is the author of "Ill Winds: Saving Democracy From Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency."

MORE: Laura Rosenberger: 7 ways to get through the next few days —The New York Times

Migrant children expelled to Mexico

Border authorities have been expelling migrant children from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador into Mexico, violating a diplomatic agreement with Mexico and testing the limits of immigration and child welfare laws. The Trump Administration has said the expulsions are necessary to prevent the coronavirus from further spreading into the U.S.

• — The expulsions are laid out in a sharply worded internal email from the Border Patrol's assistant chief, Eduardo Sanchez, who criticized the policy for putting children at risk by sending them with no accompanying adult into a country where they have no family connections.
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• — The policy also violates the terms upon which Mexico agreed to help implement U.S. policy, which were that only Mexican children and others who had adult supervision could be pushed back into Mexico after attempting to cross the border.
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• — The pandemic created an opportunity for the administration to enact its most stringent border restrictions yet. Thousands of children have since been rapidly expelled after crossing the border into the U.S. —The New York Times

Mancuso: Why I left the GOP

"I'm realistic about politics: I know that there will never be a perfect candidate. I'll always be fiscally conservative and socially liberal, and right now there isn't a party that fully represents me. But our country is looking for unity to bring light to the darkness. There's a lot of opportunity to make change, and I'm excited to see what Joe Biden can do. ... This is a ticket of truth and decency, and they are bringing optimism to a very grim season in American history. We need more of that. I need more days when I wake up hopeful than nights when I go to bed fearful." —Mary Anna Mancuso in Women's Health

Ed. Note: Mary Anna Mancuso is media manager at Stand Up Republic. She has served in various campaign communications roles for national- and state-level political campaigns.

MORE: Benjamin Ginsberg: My party is destroying itself on the altar of Trump —The Washington Post

Ahoy, matey!

How was your Halloween? A dad in New York may have won the whole holiday this year by building a 50-foot long, 20-foot tall pirate ship that towers in front of his home in Rochester. 

• — "I have no background in this, I just do it for fun for my kids, and that's what makes it so great," Tony DeMatteo said. "It's also been a rough year for a lot of people, so we decided this would be a perfect opportunity to put a smile on people's face and just give them a sense of normalcy."
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• — Made from recycled metal, wood, and rope, the vessel is complete with black pirate flags and a huge skeleton hanging from the bowsprit. It's also outfitted with six cannons that light up, a fog machine, and fire blasters. A soundtrack synchronizes with the effects of the cannons and fire blasters. The project cost about $3,000 in supplies and took a week to build, DeMatteo says.
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• — While the purpose of the pirate ship was to bring joy to his family and community, there's also a good cause behind this dad's Halloween spirit. DeMatteo asks people who stop by to bring canned goods or another food donation for people in need. So far, his garage is completely packed with food donations. Well done! —New York Pilot

The key date for mailing in tax returns is April 15. That's the day they have to be postmarked by. 

If a tax return has an April 15 postmark, the taxpayer is never fined or penalized no matter when the return is received by the IRS: the taxpayer is presumed to have kept up his or her end of the bargain. To punish them for inefficiency in the Postal Service over which they have no control would neither be just or fair. 

So why shouldn't this "postmark rule" also apply to mail-in ballots? If a voter has complied with the rules, is it fair for them to lose their vote because the post office didn't do its job properly?

This fear is especially relevant this year, when a postmaster general, who is a large Trump contributor and has promised to bring down postal costs, may delay delivery of ballots in communities in swing states that have heavy concentrations of Democratic voters.

Could postal worker overtime be limited or eliminated in Philadelphia? Could sorting machines be taken out of service in Milwaukee? Could delivery trucks in Detroit all "require" oil changes or brake repair at the same time? 

Louis DeJoy built his fortune and his reputation as a master of logistics. A person who can devise ways to move stuff quickly and cheaply might also be able to devise ways to not move stuff. —Jim V., New York

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.