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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livew...building-evacuated-due-to-suspicious-packages

Building Housing San Diego Union-Tribune Evacuated Due To Suspicious Packages
Kate Riga

The building that houses the San Diego Union-Tribune was evacuated on Wednesday due to “suspicious looking packages” that were stacked near its front door.

Per the Tribune, a police officer spotted the packages at 8:15 a.m. and the street in front of the building has been cordoned off for a hazardous material team to investigate.

The chickens are coming home to roost...
 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/north-carolina-lt-gov-dan-forest-voter-fraud-video

North Carolina Lt. Governor Appears In Video On How To Commit Voter Fraud

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Amid a push to pass a photo ID requirement for North Carolina elections, the state’s lieutenant governor appears in a video that offers instructions on how to commit voter fraud in the state.

The video, posted on Facebook, features Lt. Gov. Dan Forest telling how a group could collect the identifying information of infrequent voters before Election Day and then impersonate those voters at the polls, which is a crime under state law.

Forest says in the video, titled Voter Fraud 101, “Committing voter fraud is easy in our state. Just for fun, here’s one way an organized group could commit voter fraud in North Carolina.”

The video was paid for by the North Carolina Republican Council of State Committee, a political action committee chaired by Forest and largely funded by Greg Lindberg, a major political donor currently under federal investigation, according to WRAL-TV in Raleigh.

Asked why the video was produced, Hal Weatherman, Forest’s chief of staff, didn’t provide an explanation, saying only in an email, “The voter fraud outlined in the video would not be possible if NC had photo voter ID.”

An amendment requiring a voter photo ID is on North Carolina’s November ballot. Forest has been a strong proponent of requiring voters to show a photo identification at the polls.

An audit of the 2016 election conducted last year by the state elections board found only two cases of voter impersonation out of millions of votes cast. In both cases, the voters cast absentee ballots on behalf of a family member. No charges were filed.

Kareem Crayton, interim executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said the plan Forest outlines is unworkable. Crayton’s group fought the state’s previous voter ID law.

“The scheme that he dreamt up in that clip is not something actually that is workable,” Crayton said.

“That you’re an elected official and that you make an argument that is intended to undermine the election system that actually got you in office, let alone could throw you and a bunch of other people in jail for felony convictions, is unprecedented — and, to me, sad,” Crayton said.

Dallas Woodhouse, state GOP director, said the video is part of his party’s educational outreach supporting the photo ID amendment.

“This is simply laying out for the public what is already known by those inclined to cheat,” Woodhouse said.
 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/markets-erase-gains-for-the-year-after-day-of-steep-selloff

Markets Erase Gains For The Year After Day Of Steep Selloff


Another torrent of selling gripped Wall Street Wednesday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting more than 600 points and extending a losing streak for the benchmark S&P 500 index to a sixth day.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite bore the brunt of the sell-off, leaving it more than 10 percent below its August peak, what Wall Street calls a “correction.” The Dow and S&P 500 erased their gains for the year.

Technology stocks and media and communications companies accounted for much of the selling. AT&T sank after reporting weak subscriber numbers, and chipmaker Texas Instruments fell sharply after reporting slumping demand.

Banks, health care and industrial companies also took heavy losses, outweighing gains by utilities and other high-dividend stocks.

Disappointing quarterly results and outlooks continued to weigh on the market, stoking investors’ jitters over future growth in corporate profits. Bond prices continued to rise, sending yields lower, as traders sought safe-haven investments.

“Investors are on pins and needles,” said Erik Davidson, chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Private Bank. “There has definitely been a change in sentiment for investors starting with the volatility we had last week. The sentiment and the outlook seems to be turning more negative, or at the very least, less rosy.”

The S&P 500 lost 84.59 points, or 3.1 percent, to 2,656.10. The index is now off about 9.4 percent from its Sept. 20 peak.

The Dow tumbled 608.01 points, or 2.4 percent, to 24,583.42. The tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 329.14 points, or 4.4 percent, to 7,108.40. That’s the Nasdaq’s biggest drop since August 2011.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gave up 57.89 points, or 3.8 percent, to 1,468.70.

Bond prices rose, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury note down to 3.11 percent from 3.16 percent late Tuesday.
 
Federal judge to order Ga. counties to stop absentee ballot rejections

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https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt...tee-ballot-rejections/drBFCpDG2Kmn1kJwQxItMJ/

A federal judge intends to issue an injunction barring Georgia election officials from tossing certain absentee ballots without giving would-be voters advance notice and a chance to rectify any issues.

The implementation of the injunction — which U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May plans to file Thursday — could complicate the work of election officials statewide, requiring the review of hundreds or thousands of ballot signatures with less than two weeks until Election Day. But civil rights groups whose lawsuits led to May’s decision have already declared victory in the battle, just one of many voting rights skirmishes to surface in what’s become a contentious Georgia election season.

“We are pleased that the court has enforced the due process guarantees of the U.S. Constitution,” said Sean Young, legal director of Georgia’s branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Today’s ruling is a victory for democracy and for every absentee voter in the state of Georgia.”

May submitted her “proposed injunction” on Wednesday in response to two different lawsuits challenging how Georgia evaluates mail-in absentee ballots and applications. She gave the Secretary of State’s Office and other parties involved in the litigation until noon Thursday to file responses to her proposal.

But she wrote that objections should be confined to whether or not any of the “language is confusing or will be unworkable for the implementing officials.” She stressed that she had made the decision to file the injunction and it was not not an issue attorneys should try to argue further in their written responses.

As presented Wednesday, the injunction would include ordering Secretary of State Brian Kemp and his office to tell local elections officials to make every effort to count legitimate mail-in votes. His office must communicate the following to local election offices:

• They “shall not reject any absentee ballots due to an alleged signature mismatch.” Instead, ballots should be marked provisional and would-be voters given “pre-rejection notice and an opportunity to resolve the alleged signature discrepancy.”

• Voters rejected using the aforementioned process shall have the right to appeal.

• Any absentee ballot applications where a signature mismatch is suspected also should not be rejected. Officials should instead “provide a provisional absentee ballot to the absentee voter along with information as to the process that will be followed in reviewing the provisional ballot.”

The change would apply to all absentee ballots and applications “submitted in this current election,” May’s proposal said — meaning it would apply to would-be mail-in voters that have already been rejected.

The contest over absentee ballots is being waged amid several other Georgia voting rights battles, all of which have taken greater prominence as Kemp remains in office while running for governor against Democrat Stacey Abrams. Voting and civil rights advocates have accused Kemp of voter suppression and the state has been thrust into the national spotlight over issues of voter access.

A report by the Associated Press earlier this month revealed that tens of thousands of potential Georgia voters were in limbo due to the state’s controversial “exact match” law, which requires voter information — including signatures — to match driver’s licenses, state ID cards or Social Security records.

Voters whose statuses are pending because of the exact match law, however, can still vote in November’s election if they present valid ID.

May’s order follows a Tuesday federal court hearing regarding motions submitted in a pair of lawsuits filed against Kemp and the Gwinnett County Board of Registrations and Elections. The order mirrors concessions sought in an Oct. 17 restraining order request filed in the suit led by the ACLU.

On Oct. 19, a preliminary injunction of much wider scope was requested in a separate suit led by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Coalition for Good Governance. May has not ruled on that broader case.

A spokeswoman for the Secretary of State’s Office deferred comment Wednesday to state Attorney General Chris Carr’s office. Carr’s spokeswoman said the office could not comment on pending litigation.

A statement from Gwinnett — which was included in the lawsuits because it has rejected absentee ballots at a much higher rate than other counties — said local officials were reviewing the injunction order and would “provide its comments to the Court, as directed, by noon tomorrow.”

During Tuesday’s hearing, attorneys representing the defendants argued an injunction like the one proposed would add undue stress to already overworked elections officials.

“It’s too late for the plaintiffs to come now and ask this court to fundamentally alter the process,” Russell Willard, who was representing Kemp, said in court.

Bryan Tyson, an attorney representing Gwinnett, brought up another potential hurdle to meeting a court order. He said the county had every intention to follow the court’s directions, but that local election officials are technically required to conduct elections according to written state law.
 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...listen-in-to-trumps-iphone-calls-us-spies-say

NYT: Russian, Chinese Spies Listen In On Trump’s iPhone Calls, US Spies Say

Russian and Chinese spies listen in on President Donald Trump when he uses iPhones that he’s refused to give up despite security concerns, The New York Times reported Wednesday.


Unnamed officials told the Times that American intelligence agencies had learned of the Chinese and Russian eavesdropping from “human sources inside foreign governments and intercepting communications between foreign officials.”

The Times’ sources, the paper said, had reached out “out of frustration with what they considered the president’s casual approach to electronic security.”

Two of Trump’s three iPhones have received some alterations from the National Security Agency, the Times said, while a third is unaltered — the President continues to use that one, unnamed White House officials told the paper, because it holds his contacts’ information. He has agreed, per the report, to use separate phones for Twitter and phone calls.

The Chinese government has assembled a list of people with whom Trump speaks often in an effort to influence the President, the Times reported. Former RNC finance chair and alleged sexual assaulter Steve Wynn and Blackstone executive Stephen Schwarzman are on the list. A spokesperson for Schwarzman told the Times that he “has been happy to serve as an intermediary on certain critical matters between the two countries at the request of both heads of state.”

The Times said one of Trump’s motivations for using the cell phones, rather than the secure White House phone, is that cell phone calls are not logged on the White House switchboard.

Americans can perhaps rest assured that Trump isn’t spilling all of our state secrets on unsecured lines: In the Times’ words, administration officials say he “rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities” — so there may not be much to spill.

That’s not to say the President is especially careful. Per the Times, a “scramble” ensued last year when Trump left his cell phone in a golf cart.
 
Something is real off about this. How did this person catch two different presidential secret service groups and a couple of expensive private security people all slipping on the same day?
 
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wouldn't surprise me if a GOP operative did it and frames a person / group with far-left ideology.........

Trump knows he can't lose control of the House during this election because the House of Representatives have the power to subpoena people and documents (especially his tax records, etc) and people gloss over the fact that the GOP doesn't operate with a moral compass when trying to reach their goal
 
wouldn't surprise me if a GOP operative did it and frames a person / group with far-left ideology.........

Trump knows he can't lose control of the House during this election because the House of Representatives have the power to subpoena people and documents (especially his tax records, etc) and people gloss over the fact that the GOP doesn't operate with a moral compass when trying to reach their goal
So the point would be to frame a Democrat for trying to make the GOP look bad? Which in turn would make Democrats look bad?

Plausible, especially considering none of them went off.
 
So the point would be to frame a Democrat for trying to make the GOP look bad? Which in turn would make Democrats look bad?

Plausible, especially considering none of them went off.

The fact that none of them went off only makes me believe that. Frame a left-wing person / group and it conveniently feeds into the left-wing mob talking points of 45 and the GOP
 
The fact that none of them went off only makes me believe that. Frame a left-wing person / group and it conveniently feeds into the left-wing mob talking points of 45 and the GOP

Good thought.

So far do they think all of the bombs have come from the same suspect?
 
The fact that none of them went off only makes me believe that. Frame a left-wing person / group and it conveniently feeds into the left-wing mob talking points of 45 and the GOP

None of them went off because they were probably rigged to go off when you open them a certain way. Most of them never actually reached their target homes except for Soros. The Clintons and Obama’s get their mail screened at a separate location before it ever gets to them, specifically for situations like this
 
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