“Foreign hackers were able to gain access to voter-related information in four states by targeting not only government systems, but also by breaking into computers associated with private contractors hired to handle voter information,” ABC News has learned.
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Trump Did Business With Iranian Bank Linked to Terror
“Donald Trump’s real estate organization rented New York office space from 1998 to 2003 to an Iranian bank that U.S. authorities have linked to terrorist groups and Iran’s nuclear program,” according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation.
“Trump inherited Bank Melli, one of Iran’s largest state-controlled banks, as a tenant when he purchased the General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan… The Trump Organization kept the bank on as a tenant for four more years after the U.S. Treasury Department designated Bank Melli in 1999 as being controlled by the Iranian government.”
Two GOP Leaders Divided on Divided Government
New York Times: “Speaker Paul Ryan says he has had it with Republicans and Democrats sharing power, complaining that it breeds dysfunction and prevents major accomplishments.”
“In contrast, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, says those periods when the parties split control of Congress and the White House are the ideal time to get big things done.”
“One of these Republican leaders — their differing views shaped by their individual experiences and the characteristics of their chambers — is likely to get an opportunity to prove his political theory correct next year.”
Clinton Launches Miami Ad on Cuba Embargo
“In a sign of the ‘uncomfortable’ spot Donald Trump has put them in, the Miami Republican leaders who support a hard line on Cuba don’t want to talk about a news story detailing how one of the GOP presidential nominee’s companies helped violate the U.S. embargo of the communist island,” Politico reports.
“So Hillary Clinton is making sure voters hear all about it in South Florida — home to a sizable population of pro-embargo Republican Cuban-Americans — in a 30-second radio ad called ‘Two Trumps.'”
Giuliani Says Trump Would Be Better ‘Than a Woman’
Rudy Giuliani suggested that a man such as Donald Trump would be a better president “than a woman,” according to Politico.
Said Giuliani: “Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails.”
Quote of the Day
“Political operatives and strategists are going to study this week for generations as the textbook case of self-sabotage.”
— Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee, quoted by the Washington Post, on Donald Trump’s disastrous week.
State Poll Roundup: Sunday
Here are the latest state polls from the presidential race:
New Mexico: Clinton 35%, Trump 31%, Johnson 24% (Albuquerque Journal)
Michigan: Clinton 46%, Trump 41%, Johnson 8% (Target Insyght)
Kentucky Republicans Push Candidate to Quit
“The Republican Party of Kentucky has asked a state House candidate to drop out of the race after he posted several photos on Facebook depicting President Obama and the first lady as monkeys,” ABC News reports.
“Republican Party of Kentucky chairman Mac Brown and House Republican Floor Leader Jeff Hoover both signed the letter. It says while Dan Johnson has a First Amendment right to free speech, elected leaders ‘must hold ourselves and those with whom we serve to a higher standard.'”
“The posts on Dan Johnson’s Facebook page include a picture of a chimpanzee with the caption ‘Obama’s baby picture’ and a photo that had been altered to give Obama and his wife, Michelle, ape-like features. Johnson’s page also displayed a photo of a young Ronald Reagan feeding a monkey with a bottle with the caption: ‘Rare photos of Ronald Reagan babysitting Barack Obama in early 1962.’ His page also included a post calling Islam a ‘criminal syndicate.'”
GOP Senator Would Have Started War with Russia
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Georgia Public Radio that the United States “should really have physically gone in” to Ukraine after it was invaded by Russia because of Washington’s NATO commitments.
Said Isakson: “You know, when Crimea was invaded by the Russians, and later the Ukraine, under Article 5, we really should have physically gone in to their aid. We didn’t because we’re stretched too thin. But NATO’s an important part of our national defense and the defense of our own country.”
Trump Still Won’t Release Taxes
“Donald Trump won’t release any new tax information in response to revelations that he claimed a massive tax loss in 1995 that potentially allowed him to avoid federal-income taxes for almost two decades, according to two people familiar with the campaign’s strategy,” Bloomberg reports.
Backers Say Trump a ‘Genius’ for Not Paying Taxes
Rudy Giuliani called Donald Trump a “genius,” in the wake of a report indicating he may have legally avoiding paying taxes for nearly two decades, CNN reports.
Said Giuliani: “The reality is, this is part of our tax code. The man’s a genius. He knows how to operate the tax code to the benefit of the people he’s serving.”
Meanwhile, Politico reports Gov. Chris Christie had the same talking points: “There’s no one who’s shown more genius in their way to maneuver around the tax code.”
Clinton Trounces Trump In Post-Debate Reaction
“Americans see Hillary Clinton as the winner of the first presidential debate by a near-record margin in ABC News/Washington Post post-debate polls, with nearly half saying Donald Trump got his facts wrong and one in three saying he outright lied. His unpopularity grew slightly.”
“While views of both candidates remain broadly negative, 64 percent of Americans now express an unfavorable opinion of Trump overall, up 5 points from its pre-debate level. Fifty-three percent see Clinton unfavorably, not a significant change.”
Trump Goes Way Off Script
“Donald Trump’s campaign announced Saturday evening that the candidate would soon deliver a nine-sentence critique of comments Hillary Clinton made months ago about many of the millennials supporting her primary rival, Bernie Sanders. It was an attempt to latch onto a new headline in hopes of finally escaping the controversies that had consumed his week,” the New York Times reports.
“It didn’t work.”
“It took Trump nearly 25 minutes to read the brief statement because he kept going off on one angry tangent after another — ignoring his teleprompters and accusing Clinton of not being ‘loyal’ to her husband, imitating her buckling at a memorial service last month, suggesting that she is ‘crazy’ and saying she should be in prison. He urged his mostly white crowd of supporters to go to polling places in “certain areas” on Election Day to “watch” the voters there. He also repeatedly complained about having a “bum mic” at the first presidential debate and wondered if he should have done another season of ‘The Apprentice.'”
SNL Lampoons the First Presidential Debate
“She’s the one with the bad temperament. She’s always screaming. She’s constantly lying. Her hair is crazy. Her face is completely orange, except around the eyes where it’s white.”
Trump May Have Avoided Taxes for Two Decades
Donald Trump “declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years,” records obtained by the New York Times show.
“The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.”
“Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.”
Washington Post: What we know about Trump’s tax history
Trump Once Pressured 2nd Wife to Pose Nude
From the New York Daily News in the 1990s:
Notably, she did resist Trump’s insistence that she accept Playboy magazine’s million-dollar centerfold offer. “Trump himself was on the phone negotiating the fee,” remembers a top Playboy editor. “He wanted her to do the nude layout. She didn’t.” (“I’m thankful for my body, but I didn’t want to exploit it,” Marla offers. “How would I ever be taken seriously.”
Trump Puts Our Fragile Democracy at Risk
Rick Hasen: “One of the things we take for granted is that even in tumultuous times when elections are hard fought, the losers concede the election and embrace the process, even if things did not go well…”
“Donald Trump threatens this peace by raising the prospect not only of sending his supporters, unsupervised, into polling places (likely in minority neighborhoods). This can lead to voter intimidation on election day. He has also backed off his earlier, somewhat ambiguous statement that he would support Hillary Clinton if she won.”
“Trump’s gambit may be planned or, more likely, he’s just making it up as he goes along. It is no joke. Our democracy is a fragile thing which depends upon accepting the rules of the game.”
Girl Talk at Trump Tower
Maureen Dowd: “Every minute of every day, Trump debunks that old ‘science’ when he shows that the gossipy, backbiting, scolding, mercurial, overly emotional, shrewish, menopausal one in this race is not the woman.”
“Trump is surrounded by a bitchy sewing circle of overweight men who are overwrought at the prospect of a distaff Clinton presidency.”
“Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Roger Ailes and Rudy Giuliani are the Really Desperate Housewives of Trumpworld. They are so shrill that Trump sometimes needs to remind them that he’s the Queen Bee.”
