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sabra's JournalN.Y. Attorney General Letitia James developing 'long' list of Trump actions for Biden to undo
Source: NBC News
The Democratic official also told NBC News she is reviewing legal options in case the president contests the election results.
New York Attorney General Letitia James says her office is preparing a substantial list of legal actions for a potential Biden administration to begin quickly reversing Trump administration initiatives, she told NBC News in an interview.
"We're preparing a list. And the list is long," she said Thursday. "We'll have a team of individuals, again, working on reversing all of the bad regulations and laws that have been put forth ... We will work with the Biden administration to ask them to file stays in a number of cases that are pending in the courts all across this country."
James, a leading Democratic state attorney general, said she and her colleagues are also reviewing "legal options to determine what action, if any" state attorneys general will take should the election results be contested.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/ny-attorney-general-letitia-james-developing-long-list-trump-actions-n1245358
Pence absent from Covid-19 planning calls for more than a month
Source: Politico
When Vice President Mike Pence first took charge of the White House’s coronavirus task force, among his earliest moves was establishing a standing call with all 50 governors aimed at closely coordinating the nation’s pandemic fight.
Yet as the U.S. confronts its biggest Covid-19 surge to date, Pence hasn’t attended one of those meetings in over a month.
Pence – who has been touting the Trump administration’s response effort on the campaign trail for weeks – is not expected to be on the line again Friday, when the group holds its first governors call since Oct. 13, said a person with knowledge of the plan. It’s a prolonged absence that represents just the latest sign of the task force’s diminished role in the face of the worsening public health crisis it was originally created to combat.
Once a driving force behind the White House’s coronavirus messaging, the group hasn’t held a collective press briefing in months. Inside the West Wing, task force members’ growing alarm over the virus’ resurgence has gone largely ignored. And among health officials on the front lines, there is mounting consensus that the federal government has little new aid to offer – leaving states to face the pandemic’s third and potentially worst wave increasingly on their own.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/29/pence-absent-coronavirus-calls-433637
Karen Pence says a man whose brother died of COVID thanked her for Trump and Pence's virus response
https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1321904006525030402
Trump Quashed Probe Into Crimes by Bank in Turkey, Which Is Paying Trump
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/trump-turkey-bank-scandal-corruption-erdogan-halkbank-conflict-interest.html?utm_campaign=nym&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=twIn 2016, Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked then-Vice-President Joe Biden to lean on federal prosecutors who were investigating a Turkish bank for financial crimes and to hand over a dissident cleric living in the United States. The requests seemed to be on Biden’s mind when he publicly addressed reporters and piously explained that, in the United States, the justice system doesn’t work like that. “I suspect it’s hard for people to understand that as powerful as my country is, as powerful as Barack Obama is as president, he has no authority under our Constitution to extradite anyone,” Biden explained to reporters. “Only a federal court can do that. Nobody else can do that. If the president were to take this into his own hands, what would happen would be he would be impeached for violating the separation of powers.”
Well, the justice system works like that now.
The New York Times has a comprehensive report on Erdogan’s successful efforts to recruit top Trump administration officials into his corrupt scheme.
...
The misconduct found by the Times is actually much worse than the hypothetical behavior Biden said would lead to impeachment for two reasons. First, it undermines Trump’s own foreign policy. The crimes for which the bank, Halkbank, was being investigated relate to violating American sanctions on Iran. After the Obama administration relaxed sanctions on Iran as part of a nuclear deal, the Trump administration ramped up those sanctions and used them as the lynchpin of its strategy in the region. (This helps explain why national security adviser John Bolton, an Iran Über-hawk, was motivated to blow the whistle on this corruption.)
The billboard MAGAs will be driving past after the Trump rally in Tampa
https://twitter.com/RonGOPVet4Biden/status/1315651872695480320Florida judge resigns from vote-counting board after donations to Trump campaign uncovered
Source: USA Today/AP
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Florida judge has resigned from Duval County’s vote-counting board after findings that he donated repeatedly to President Trump’s re-election campaign and other Republican efforts were uncovered.
Duval County senior Judge Brent Shore, whose home displayed several signs supporting Trump, had served as chairman of the canvassing board because of his role as a county judge.
Yet Florida judicial rules bar judges from political donations of any kind.
And canvassing board rules bar members from "displaying a candidate's campaign signs."
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/29/judge-brent-shore-florida-duval-county-vote-counting-head-trump-donations/6068234002/
Rudy Vents to Trump That Bill Barr Is Screwing Up His Hunter Play
Source: The Daily Beast
Weeks after Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani first pushed the Hunter Biden files and a collection of sordid dirt to the New York Post in a last-ditch effort to drag his client across the 2020 finish line, both he and the president, as well as several of Trump’s political lieutenants, have grown frustrated at the lack of impact it’s had.
But rather than conceding that the broader public might not be interested, Trump and Giuliani have instead put the blame for the failure to break through in part on Attorney General William Barr.
In the aftermath of the New York Post reporting earlier this month—for which Trump had personally greenlighted Giuliani’s decision to act as the paper’s source—the former New York City mayor has spoken with President Trump both about the Hunter Biden materials and what could be done about them from a law enforcement perspective, according to a White House official and a source close to Giuliani. Recently, the president and Giuliani discussed their mutual frustrations with the lack of action from Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray saying that the emails and Hunter files have provided legal ammunition to probe the Bidens, the person close to Giuliani said.
The Trump attorney had also advised the president that the events of the past two weeks underscore why Trump should fire Wray, arguing that it shows that the current FBI director is an anti-Trump subversive, according to the White House official. This official was not aware of Giuliani making as harsh a comment about Barr. Reached for comment on Wednesday night, Giuliani told The Daily Beast: “I don’t comment on my conversations with my client.”
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/rudy-giuliani-vents-to-trump-that-attorney-general-bill-barr-is-screwing-up-his-hunter-biden-play?source=twitter&via=desktop
Two attendees at Trump North Carolina rally get COVID-19
Source: MSN/AP
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Two people who attended President Donald Trump's rally last week in Gastonia, North Carolina, have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an announcement from the Gaston County Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday.
“These cases are not thought to be an indication of spread from the rally at this time, but rather two independent cases among individuals who were in attendance,” the department said in a statement.
The county health department recommends anyone who attended the president’s Oct. 21 rally to assess their own risk, monitor for symptoms and get tested if necessary.
It said it has contacted other locations the two individuals have been to and is working to notify close contacts of the infected rallygoers. The information is being publicly released because the department is unable to directly inform the thousands of attendees.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/politics/two-attendees-at-trump-north-carolina-rally-get-covid-19/ar-BB1awax3?pfr=1
Polling places in Iowa are closing due to COVID-19, which could affect close races
Source: The Hill
Voters in Iowa are facing shuttered polling locations less than a week away from Election Day, largely due to the various outbreaks of COVID-19 that have gripped the state.
Iowa is one of the several Midwest states that are experiencing record upticks in new coronavirus infections, with 1,133 Iowans testing positive for the virus yesterday. Two days prior, Iowa set a record for the number of new cases, reporting 2,617 on Oct. 26. In total, more than 121,000 people in Iowa tested positive for the coronavirus.
The current state testing positivity rate sits at 12.7 percent, well above the 10 percent rate recommendation to begin reopening economic and public sectors.
NPR and the Iowa Public Radio News report that hundreds of polling centers have closed due to COVID-19, leaving voters with fewer local options.
Read more: https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/accessibility/523372-polling-places-in-iowa-are-closing-due-to-covid-19
A new coronavirus variant is seen spreading across Europe, research says
Source: CNBC
LONDON — A variant of the coronavirus that is believed to have originated in Spain has spread across Europe and now accounts for most of the new cases reported in several countries in the region, according to the findings of a new study.
The research, which is due to published on Thursday and has not been peer reviewed, details how an international team of scientists has closely monitored the coronavirus through its genetic mutations.
Each variant of the coronavirus has its own genetic signature, meaning it can be traced back to the place it first emerged.
It says a new variant of the disease, identified as 20A.EU1 by researchers from Switzerland and Spain, was first observed in Spain in June. The new variant has been recorded in Spain at frequencies of above 40% since July, the study said.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/29/coronavirus-variant-seen-spreading-across-europe-research-says.html
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