The Morning Dispatch: Town Hall Split-Screen

Plus: Ballot box shenanigans in California and some more on Rudy Giuliani's Hunter Biden story.

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Happy Friday! We hope you’re as excited for our post-election event as we are. In the meantime, on to the news!

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • The United States confirmed 65,600 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday per the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard, with 6.5 percent of the 1,011,416 tests reported coming back positive. An additional 1,020 deaths were attributed to the virus on Thursday, bringing the pandemic’s American death toll to 217,754.

  • The number of Americans living in poverty has grown by 6 to 8 million since May, according to two new reports. The CARES Act—passed in March—temporarily lifted millions out of poverty, but most of its benefits expired months ago.

  • The Trump administration rejected California’s request for a disaster declaration in response to six wildfires raging across the state. Gov. Gavin Newsom had requested financial assistance from the federal government in a letter on September 28.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Kmregan7

    This seems to correspond to the ballot box shenanigans... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/us/politics/federal-appeals-courts-trump-voting.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

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  2. The original Optimum.net

    From this morning:

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/rudys-russian-agent-pal-teases-second-laptop-with-hunter-biden-kompromat?ref=home

    Here's the money quote:

    "Now, with Derkach jumping in with claims of a “second laptop,” that would mean private computer contents allegedly connected to Hunter Biden have somehow found their way into the hands of three separate parties: A media empire controlled by a Chinese billionaire who’s tight with Steve Bannon; a random Delaware shop owner who is outspoken in his support of Trump; and Derkach, a Ukrainian conspiracy theory peddler who studied at Moscow’s FSB academy."

    Jeez, how many laptops did Hunter Biden have? And how have they ALL seem to have found their way to various folks

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  3. Avatar photo
    Brian Andrews

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-biden-china-email-source-verifies

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      Stephanie

      Please don't post links to Fox News, Washington Examiner, NY Post, Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, or other partisan media who are pushing the Biden story. They're not trustworthy. I will wait to see official announcements, and follow the story in the Times, the Washington Post, NPR, BBC, etc.

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    2. Tim Johnson

      Yawn. Much ado about nothing, just like Trump's strong-arming the Ukrainians for dirt on Biden.

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        Brian Andrews

        The story corroborates the validity of the Hunter’s emails from the laptop. One of confirm’s Joe Biden “The Big Man” had knowledge of Hunter leveraging his access to Vice President of The United States because of the payout suggested for Joe Biden in the email.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Stephanie

          I will not follow you into that rabbit hole. The whole story is false until proven true.

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          Greenknight

          Actually no, it doesn't.

          We know:
          1. The Russians demonstrated in the 2017 French election that one of their tactics is to hack emails from one side, alter SOME of them to include scandalous details, and then release all of them to muddy up a candidate. This has been documented.

          2. Earlier this year Russian hackers hacked Burisma.

          3. This week, 20 days from the election, a laptop shows up under mysterious circumstances (involving at least one known Russian agent who was working with Rudy Giuliani) containing purported emails from Hunter Biden, SOME of which contain scandalous information (of which NONE has been independently verified, and one so far has been disproven by Joe Biden's VP calendar).

          The reason this story hasn't gotten any "traction" is because it is blatantly obviously a fake "dirty tricks" story that follows the Russian GRU's playbook to the letter.

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          1. Tim Johnson

            The GOP has spent the past 4 years shrugging off all manner of impropriety, so it's kind of hard to get excited about these allegations, even if proved correct.

            Ironic, eh?

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  4. Avatar photo
    Scarlette Tarte

    The 9th amendment is my favorite part of the Constitution. We have rights not enumerated in that august document.

    Any justice can whip them out of the air if they so wish to. It is RIGHT THERE in the ORIGINAL.

    How about that for some "originalism"?

    I should have been on that panel asking her questions.

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    1. Midge

      Wouldn't originalism entail research into what the 9th amendment was referring to by mentioning unenumerated rights?

      The Rights of Englishmen come to mind. George Mason said, "We claim nothing but the liberty and privileges of Englishmen in the same degree, as if we had continued among our brethren in Great Britain."

      Common law is called judge-made law, but not because judges whip it out of the air. It's not static. It can evolve to fit the times. But originalists should want to see it rooted, I suspect.

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    Scarlette Tarte

    Thank you Dispatch, for the shout out about the ProPublica story. I find them to be the best investigative news source around. Glad to know the the conservatives here are reading them as well.

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    1. Tim Johnson

      ProPublica reports on government malfeasance and frequently uncovers information the government is hiding from us - doesn't get much more conservative than that!

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    Phil H

    I read the Declaration of Independence, aloud, every Fourth of July. I find that I have to make a great effort to finish the final paragraph ("we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor") as it never fails to put a lump in my throat. I then reread Rush Limbaugh's speech about the Signers and what their pledge cost them.

    The Constitution I read less often. I should do that more frequently. The intricate details in a relatively short document and how they interrelate are marvelous to behold, like a finely crafted old clock.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Jean-Christophe Jouffrey

    Dear Morning Dispatchers,

    Trigger warning : in the following I am not "equating" anything with anything, I am making an analogy of proportion, that is an analogy between 2 relations between 2 terms, NOT terms with other terms.

    "What I do hear about it is that they are very strongly against pedophilia, and I agree with that.”

    "I know nothing about the Nazis, what I do hear about it is that they are strongly opposed to usury, and I agree with that."

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      jhc

      That's a very good analogy, JCJ.

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    Billy Wright

    I don’t know if this is a general pattern, but in the Constitutional Law class in my own law school reading the actual Constitution was never on the agenda. The document itself was only grudgingly included as Appendix B. That’s right - B. IIRC Appendix A was Planned parenthood v Casey.

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  9. Dave Herbert

    So you agree with the way ABC covered it? Interesting definition of objectivity

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  10. Gene

    Depends on the meaning of "intellectually honest opinion”.

    Does it mean only that an opinion is honestly believed? The opinion can be deluded, contrary to fact or logic.

    Or does it mean that the opinion is defended with careful regard for fact and logic?

    Or something else?

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