Three More Weeks of Phase 3, Apparently
Everything you need to know for Thursday, Oct. 22: NC's unemployment rate rises + complaints about NCGOP poll observers + Duke researchers’ COVID clues + Donnie’s Chinese bank account
Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020
12 days until the election.
5 days until the deadline for absentee ballot requests.
10 days until early voting ends (you can register when you vote at EV sites). Find your EV site here. Find out how long you’ll have to vote early in Wake County here and Durham County here.
53 days until Electoral College slates send their votes to Congress.
76 days until Congress counts Electoral College votes.
90 days until the inauguration.
Today’s Numbers:
50
Percentage of Donald Trump’s supporters who believe top Democrats are involved in elite child-trafficking rings. Totally normal country we’ve got here.
157,408,480
Projected voters for the 2020 election, equaling a turnout rate of 65.8% and 18.6 million more votes than in 2016, according to Echelon Insights.
This year’s electorate will also be more diverse, with nonwhites making up a share of the vote 2 points greater than 2016. That’s good news for Joe Biden, but it’s balanced by another piece of good news for Donald Trump: there should be more members of his demographic base—white voters without college degrees—than most pollsters think, even after their post-2016 adjustments to weight on college education.
99
Out of 100, Joe Biden’s chance of winning the election if he wins North Carolina, according to 538’s new choose-your-own-adventure gizmo.
ABOVE THE FOLD
—> Three More Weeks of Phase 3
I’d imagine the press conference Roy Cooper would rather hold 13 days before the election would be the one where he declares victory over the pandemic and announces that everything can reopen full-throttle. But you don’t get to do that when COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are rising. So, yesterday, Cooper extended phase 3 of his reopening plan until Nov. 13.
The state has seen more than 250,000 cases and 4,000 deaths since March, including more than 1,800 new cases just yesterday.
“With new cases rising, the state is asking elected officials in 36 counties … to consider actions to ‘improve compliance’ with executive orders. … Those actions could include adopting ordinances that would impose fines for violating COVID-19 executive orders, and allowing local health directors to issue imminent hazard abatement orders.”
“‘We’re hoping all of that can help us stem the tide that we see coming at us,’ [Cooper] said at a news conference Wednesday. More imminent hazard abatements are expected in the coming days, he said. Local actions send ‘a strong signal to businesses that it’s important for the health of the community and the economy of the community for them to take steps to slow the spread of the virus,’” Cooper said.
To review, phase 3 permits:
Bars to open with outdoor seating only.
Entertainment venues to open subject to capacity limits and with everyone seated.
Movie theaters to open with reduced capacity limits.
Stadiums to open at 7% capacity.
POLITICS: Dan Forest will try to use this to his advantage—ROY COOPER IS KILLING JOBS!—but it won’t work, the race’s trajectory won’t change, and Dan Forest is going to lose.
LOCAL & STATE
—> NC’s Unemployment Rate Rose in September
On Tuesday, the state Commerce Department reported that the unemployment rate rose from 6.5% to 7.3%, part of a national trend showing a slowing recovery as the effects of the first COVID stimulus wore off and Congress failed to pass a second.
While unemployment is down from being at 12.9% in April and 12.8% in May, the latest increase raises more concerns about any recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and socioeconomic restrictions on the state.
There have been examples—particularly in the leisure, hospitality, restaurant, and retail sectors—of workers being called back from furlough in July and August, only for their jobs to be eliminated as their employer closes their local store or goes out of business.
—> Guilford Officials Report Complaints About GOP Poll Watchers
The Reverend Anthony Spearman, head of the state NAACP and a member of the Guilford County Board of Elections, told his colleagues on Tuesday afternoon “that he has received multiple complaints about Republican poll observers failing to wear masks [and] taking photos of poll books and telling voters how to vote.”
“We have been concerned that there are going to be uprisings of intimidation, and that is occurring in the early-voting sites,” Spearman told his colleagues on the five-member elections board during a meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
Spearman said he received a report that two Republican poll observers at Brown Recreation Center, an early-voting site in a predominantly African-American area of southeast Greensboro, were not wearing masks on Oct. 16, the second day of early voting, and he said the election workers told him they were reluctant to return to work “because they felt their lives were in danger by the un-masked observers.” …
As of Tuesday, more than 100,000 of Guilford’s 380,000 registered voters had cast their ballots.
—> Duke Researchers Find Clues to COVID Transmission
In a study published in PeerJ, a Duke team details how mutations took the novel coronavirus from wildlife to humans—and might tell us how it is transmitted before symptoms appear.
Specifically, the new study identified mutations that altered the famous spike proteins of the virus, making the strains more likely to survive.
It also found that silent mutations in two other parts of the virus genome—Nsp4 and Nsp16—appear to have given the virus a “biological edge” over other, existing strains of the virus.
That mechanism, the researchers say, may be behind the way the virus spreads from one person to another before the contagious person even shows symptoms. Researchers believe it may also be behind the way to target the virus with therapeutics.
—> WCPSS Gives Its Superintendent an Extra Year of Severance, for Equity
By all accounts, Wake County Superintendent Cathy Moore is in no danger of getting fired. Yet the school board voted to add an extra year of severance to her contract anyway on the off-chance they change their minds.
The Wake school board on Tuesday unanimously approved a contract amendment that gives Moore an extra year of severance pay, for a total of two years, if she’s unilaterally terminated. Board members said it was matter of equity to have Moore’s contract match the buyout terms that were included in former Superintendent Jim Merrill’s contract.
Moore makes just shy of $300,000 a year and is under contract through 2023. The severance package wouldn’t apply if she quit or they fired her for cause, only if, say, new school board members got elected and gave her the Tony Tata treatment.
Speaking of new board members, there’s an election coming up …
The vote comes two weeks before the election and has drawn complaints from several candidates who are running against the incumbents.
“This will not happen when I’m elected,” school board candidate Greg Hahn tweeted Tuesday. “This money could well have been allocated elsewhere! It’s time for change!”
Equity is good, of course, and the board probably should have given Moore the same terms as Morrill in 2018 even if she said it wasn’t necessary. But doing this right before an election when parents are upset about schools not reopening and teachers are upset about schools reopening too soon might not have been the best timing, even if motives were pure all around.
RELATED: Read the public comments submitted to the school board and ask me again why I would never, ever, ever run for public office (and why I admire and respect—and envy the infinite patience of—those of you who have).
—> The North Carolina Roundup
Governor Cooper’s dog died. 😢
Dan Forest is very excited about the prospect of lower Black turnout.
NC officials keep fining a wastewater plant—and keep telling its neighbors that it’s not polluting a nearby river.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans has illegally funneled more than $28,000 to Republicans since 2016. The group is now under investigation.
A teenager walked into Duke Hospital with non-life-threatening wounds after being wounded in a shootout at McDougald Terrace.
A former Raleigh waitress has sued the Firebirds restaurant chain after coworkers shared a sexually explicit video in a company group chat.
—> Weather
Partly cloudy, high of 81.
NATION & WORLD
—> Donald Trump’s Secret Chinese Bank Account
The latest offering in the apparently infinite series President Trump’s tax returns have generated for The New York Times focuses on his dealings in China—which, even as he claims the Biden family is somehow in hock to, the president himself is pretty involved with.
Among the highlights:
China is one of three foreign nations—besides Britain and Ireland—where Trump has a bank account.
Trump spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China and partnered with a major government-controlled company.
“The Chinese account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management L.L.C., which the tax records show paid $188,561 in taxes in China while pursuing licensing deals there from 2013 to 2015.” (That is approximately 250 times what Trump was paying in personal income taxes.)
“[A Trump Organization lawyer] would not identify the bank in China where the account is held. Until last year, China’s biggest state-controlled bank rented three floors in Trump Tower, a lucrative lease that drew accusations of a conflict of interest for the president.”
This might be significant:
But Mr. Trump’s plans in China have been largely driven by a different company, Trump International Hotels Management—the one with a Chinese bank account.
The company … normally reports a few million dollars in annual income and deductible expenses. In 2017, the company reported an unusually large spike in revenue—some $17.5 million, more than the previous five years’ combined. It was accompanied by a $15.1 million withdrawal by Mr. Trump from the company’s capital account.
RELATED: Trump took nearly $9 million from a multilevel marketing company between 2005 and 2015. Now, four investors are suing. (Read the lawsuit here.)
For over a year, Jane Doe held out hope that her involvement with ACN would yield a profit. She had sunk at least $4,600 into the marketing company, known as American Communications Network, over the course of a year.
She made just $38 to show for it.
But she remained optimistic: Donald Trump, the New York real estate tycoon and star of The Apprentice, was publicly backing the company.
“I work with a lot of companies and I can say with 100% confidence that you've made the right decision choosing ACN,” Trump said in one video shown to recruits.
—> The Brief: Five Stories to Read Today
The Mi Familia Vota Education Fund has filed a lawsuit accusing Trump, Attorney General William Barr, and Department of Homeland Security Acting Director Chad Wolf of “trying to prevent a free and fair 2020 election.” “President Donald Trump should be blocked from encouraging his supporters to intimidate and harass voters at polling places and ballot drop box locations, a voting rights group said Wednesday in a new lawsuit. Mi Familia Vota Education Fund compiled months of Trump’s tweets and statements about the upcoming election in support of its argument that the president is unlawfully interfering with the voting process.”
Justice-to-be Amy Coney Barrett served as a trustee for a private school that barred the children of gay parents and discriminated against LGBTQ teachers. “Interviewees told the AP that Trinity’s leadership communicated anti-LGBTQ policies and positions in meetings, one-on-one conversations, enrollment agreements, employment agreements, handbooks and written policies—including those in place when Barrett was an active member of the board. … The actions are probably legal, experts said. Scholars said the school’s and organization’s teachings on homosexuality and treatment of LGBTQ people are harsher than those of the mainstream Catholic church.”
On that note: “Pope Francis expressed support for same-sex civil unions in remarks made in a documentary that premiered on Wednesday, a significant break from his predecessors that staked out new ground for the church in its recognition of gay people. … ‘What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered,’ Francis said, reiterating his view that gay people are children of God.”
The CDC issued vastly expanded who is considered at risk of contracting COVID-19. “Federal health officials issued new guidance on Wednesday that greatly expands the pool of people considered at risk of contracting the novel coronavirus by changing the definition of who is a ‘close contact’ of an infected individual. The change by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is likely to have its biggest impact in schools, workplaces, and other group settings where people are in contact with others for long periods of time. It also underscores the importance of mask-wearing to prevent spread of the virus, even as President Trump and his top coronavirus adviser raise doubts about such guidance.”
Tonight marks the final presidential debate. “With less than two weeks until voting concludes, President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will face off for the final time in a debate on Thursday, likely marking Trump's last chance to reach a massive audience as he trails Biden in polls nationally and in key states.”
—> Polling Update
National
Biden 46-42 (HarrisX)
Biden 52-43 (YouGov/Economist)
Biden 49-46 (Rasmussen)
Biden 49-46 (IBD)
Arizona
President: Biden 48-46 (Rasmussen)
President: Biden 49-46 (Ipsos/Reuters)
Senate: Kelly (D) 51-43 (Ipsos/Reuters)
Florida
President: Biden 50-46 (Ipsos/Reuters)
President: Biden 50-46 (CNN)
President: Biden 51-47 (Civiqs)
Raise the Minimum Wage to $15/hour: Support 57-38 (needs 60% to pass) (Civiqs)
Iowa
President: Tied 48-46 (Emerson)
President: Biden 50-47 (Monmouth)
President: Biden 46-43 (NYT/Sienna)
Senate: Greenfield (D) 49-47 (Monmouth)
Senate: Ernst (R, inc.) 45-44 (NYT/Sienna)
Senate: Ernst (R, inc.) 46-45 (Emerson)
Michigan
President: Biden 52-40 (Fox News)
Minnesota
President: Biden 53-43 (Civiqs)
Nevada
President: Biden 52-43 (Civiqs)
Ohio
President: Trump 48-45 (Fox News)
Pennsylvania
President: Biden 50-45 (Fox News)
President: Biden 51-43 (Quinnipiac)
President: Biden 53-43 (CNN)
President: Biden 49-42 (USA Today/Suffolk)
Adding Supreme Court Justices: Oppose 58-27 (USA Today/Suffolk)
Texas
President: Tied 47-47 (Quinnipiac)
Senate: Cornyn (R, inc.) 49-43 (Quinnipiac)
Wisconsin
President: Biden 49-44 (Fox News)
President: Tie 45-45 (Susquehanna)
The big picture. Mr. Biden enters the debate up by nine percentage points nationwide, including a lead of five points or more in states worth more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win. He leads, even if only narrowly in some cases, in states worth more than 350 electoral votes. … Mr. Biden’s lead has seemed to decline a bit over the last week or so, perhaps because the news of Mr. Trump’s conduct at the first debate and his hospitalization with coronavirus has faded.
—> The Roundup
A grand juror in the Breonna Taylor case said the Kentucky attorney general never gave them the option of indicting the officers who killed her on anything other than wanton endangerment charges. A judge has ordered the grand jury documents released.
Purdue Pharma reached a settlement with the Justice Department requiring it to pay $8 billion in penalties for selling opioids and allow the settlement of thousands of lawsuits. The Sackler family has also agreed to pay $225 million but may yet face criminal charges.
Lindsey Graham wants an investigation into how Democrats are raising so much damn money for his opponent.
Louis DeJoy told Congress he only made one change to the USPS since taking over. He’s made 57.
In a lawsuit, Phil Collins has asked a court to end his ex-wife’s “armed occupation” of his Miami mansion. Celebrities, they’re just like us.
Quibi is apparently getting shut down.
“Books bound in human skin have been circulating among private collectors for centuries and often sell for far more than their animal-bound counterparts.”
Siri, show me the worst possible take on the Jeffrey Toobin Zoom Dick Incident.
Very Credible Source Rudy Giuliani tells Very Credible News Outlet Newsmax that Hunter Biden’s laptop had pictures of underage girls, reports Very Credible Website Daily Caller.
Speaking of Rudy and underage girls, the new Borat movie …
In the film, released on Friday, the former New York mayor and current personal attorney to Donald Trump is seen reaching into his trousers and apparently touching his genitals while reclining on a bed in the presence of the actor playing Borat’s daughter, who is posing as a TV journalist.
Following an obsequious interview for a fake conservative news programme, the pair retreat at her suggestion for a drink to the bedroom of a hotel suite, which is rigged with concealed cameras.
After she removes his microphone, Giuliani, 76, can be seen lying back on the bed, fiddling with his untucked shirt and reaching into his trousers. They are then interrupted by Borat who runs in and says: “She’s 15. She’s too old for you.” …
Even before he reaches into his trousers, Giuliani does not appear to acquit himself especially impressively during the encounter. Flattered and flirtatious, he drinks scotch, coughs, fails to socially distance, and claims Trump’s speedy actions in the spring saved a million Americans from dying of Covid. He also agrees—in theory at least—to eat a bat with his interviewer.
Wait, WHAT?
Sorry for that image of Rudy haunting your dreams.