The Morning Dispatch: Last Call on the Campaign Trail

Plus: Alarming pandemic numbers and an absentee ballot PSA.

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Happy Friday! We needed this Friday more than we’ve needed a Friday in a long time. Next stop: Election week! (Quick reminder: We hope you’ll join us Tuesday night as we ring in the election results on our final Dispatch Live of this long, insane campaign.)

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • The economy grew a record 7.4 percent from Q2 to Q3, according to a Commerce Department report released on Thursday morning, gaining back about two thirds of the losses it incurred earlier this year. The number of new unemployment claims decreased week-over-week from 791,000 to 751,000. Gross domestic product remains about 3.5 percent smaller than it was before the pandemic.

  • At least six are dead and 2.1 million are without power due to Zeta, a post-tropical cyclone that first made landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday as a Category 2 hurricane.

  • A Tunisian national stabbed three people to death in Nice’s Notre-Dame Basilica on Thursday in what French President Emmanuel Macron called an “Islamist terrorist attack.” The attack comes in the wake of the public funeral of Samuel Paty, a teacher who was beheaded in the street after showing his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed in a unit on free speech. Macron said the government will deploy thousands of members of its anti-terror security force across the country in the coming days.

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  1. Gene


    It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
    It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
    -Mark Twain

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    Michael Edesess

    Geez, you guys are super-literate but really, "Trump also continues to 'hone in' on Hunter Biden"? Trump "homes in" not "hones in," as a missile "homes in" on its target.

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  3. Gene

    BTW, here’s an insight that all who try to engage in serious argumentation should realize:

    "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
    It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. "
    -Mark Twain

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  4. Gene

    "So what do you think should be done when that happens (or preferably before?) and if you can't get ICU care for a heart attack because they are full in your area?”

    I haven’t kept a transcript of the posts with you.
    1. Presumably “that” is some serious condition. When the full text of an exchange is not readily available, clarity is improved greatly by using proper nouns.
    2. If I had a heart attack and couldn't get ICU care, seems I’d have a high probability of dying.

    "So you don't read for the facts and links”
    3. False. But maybe you have evidence that I don’t.
    4. I do read for facts and links when an article is not a rant but presents evidence carefully without a miasma of emotion.

    "you just don't like the tone.”
    5. A “rant” is not just a matter of “tone”. It’s a tirade.
    It is possible that a rant can contain some important facts (even a stopped clock is right twice a day, even a bum can utter an important truth, ...)
    But there are so many articles that present serious arguments carefully without a flood of emotion clouding the evidence presented, that there’s little need to waste precious time on those that rant.

    "I thought complaining about trump's tone is bad in trumpworld.”
    6. I imagine it is. You’ve perhaps been there to corroborate.

    "You cited the GB and there are plenty of factual statements in that article to counteract its claims.”
    7. For a worthwhile discussion you should:
    a) Identify a statement in GB that you think is false and
    b) Present clearly stated evidence that presumably falsifies the GB statement.
    c) Repeat these two steps for each presumed false statement in GB’
    Otherwise all we’ll have is a rant.



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  5. Gene

    Seems it’s a catastrophe for a president to be stupid.

    Suggest you compare his implemented policies to those of Biden.

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    1. Tim Johnson

      Done. Voting for Biden.

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    Jean-Christophe Jouffrey

    Dear Morning Dispatchers,

    According to Donald Trump Junior, the numbers for Covid-19 are "almost nothing" and "we're outperforming Europe".

    1) if 90000 infections and 900 deaths a day are almost nothing, then what are the 6 deads due to Zeta or the 3 deads in Nice ?

    2) I remember a few months ago when the USA were 2 weeks behind Europe in the pandemic and so many claimed that the USA were handling it so well compared to Europe... Wait and see in a few weeks when it might become clear that unfortunately, once more, you did not learn the lessons, and you "rounded the wrong corner".

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    1. Tim Johnson

      If we're rounding a corner, it's a heck of a long one.

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  7. deathtomcmansions

    Oh yeah, I forgot Malted Milk Balls.

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  8. Gene

    KatWyant, definitely there HAS to be a balance between safety and life.

    As to blaming Trump , yes, to a degree- certainly as to telling the truth, but would Biden have done better?

    Would he have shut down travel from China and Europe or continued to believe that was just xenophobic?

    Have engaged successfully with private enterprise wholeheartedly to produce needed equipment and greatly expedited vaccine development?

    Imposed even more damaging lockdowns?

    Possibly we’d be in a bigger mess?

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    1. deathtomcmansions

      also the travel "shut down" from China still brought in 40,000 people (expats and naturalized citizens/family members) back to the US with almost no screening or followup.

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    2. deathtomcmansions

      shutting down travel from China and Europe was stupid because covid had already gained a foothold in community spread. Also because it was done by random tweet or other hot mess announcement rather than giving our allies in Europe the courtesy of a heads up.

      Maybe a BIden would have modeled wearing masks, not mocked them, and asked people to expect hardship but that if everyone worked together to get it knocked down (a la Churchill for WWII) the lockdowns would have been much shorter, the summer would have been more open (albeit more carefully open) and we would be going into the winter and flu season at a much lower baseline instead of losing 2 jumbo jets worth to Covid every day.

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      1. Gene

        As to Biden who appears a very, very old 77: Maybe, maybe, maybe.

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      2. Gene

        “shutting down travel from China and Europe was stupid because covid had already gained a foothold...”. So, let many thousands more from China and Europe: far less “stupid”.

        Not giving our allies in Europe the courtesy of a heads up: unnecessary poor form but far from a catastrophe.





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        1. deathtomcmansions

          Ok the more I think about it: claiming a "shutdown from China" while still letting in 40K expats, naturalized citizens & family members return, just from China let alone other countries was hardly a shutdown. Also, most if not all of those returnees were released into the wild with no testing, no quarantining, which WAS stupid.

          But once it's gotten to community spread, closing borders is really pretty useless so it's pointless (I happen to think pointless is also stupid.). A much better approach would have been to continue allowing air travel into the US with a strict quarantine for 2 weeks upon entry. No exemptions, and better to put into a guarded hotel to best ensure compliance. Once good (ie highly accurate) tests became available, then the quarantine would be shortened by testing. The aforementioned Asian countries plus prob Australia and NZ also did the same and kept commerce in much better shape as a result.

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        2. deathtomcmansions

          I didn't call it a catastrophe, I just said it was stupid.

          also potus is just plain incoherent a lot of the time. When he's not incoherent, he's tap dancing like the kid who got asked a question that he doesn't know, he just spews generalities that never answer the question.

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  9. Mike Mattson

    It was a body sized condom. Went to a fabric store that had some rubber-like fabric and it was very life-like. My other favorite costume was a tampon. Luckily I have grown beyond those costumes.

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  10. deathtomcmansions

    My parents were anti-trick or treating for reasons that never made a ton of sense to me, something something blackmail. So I don't remember my costumes since we only wore them to school for one day and to hand out candy. I made lots of costumes for my kids over the years but don't really have a favorite, I liked them all. The Red Dalek and the Minecraft Creeper were the most unusual (not those little prefab box heads for Minecraft characters, a tall shipping box carefully painted) and also the most impossible to trick or treat in.

    Candy: carefully rationed candy corns, Butterfingers, Almond Joy and dark chocolate Mounds.

    The year I was 17, I snuck out with a couple of younger siblings with slap-dash costumes (I think a ghost, my motorcycle helmet and jacket for me and maybe a mummy or vampire?? something easily slapped together.) I drove them around to trick or treat and charged them half of their candy on top of my own as payment for helping them with a forbidden activity.

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