RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-fields-questions-at-nbc-town-hall-he-expected-to-be-a-set-up_3541245.html

President Donald Trump on Thursday night fielded questions from Florida voters and an NBC News moderator for a town hall in Miami in what he expected to be a “set up.”

The live televised town hall lasted one hour from 8 p.m. ET and was moderated by Savannah Guthrie. The president, just hours before the town hall, told a reelection rally in North Carolina that he was “being set up tonight” by “Concast … because it’s a con job,” referring to the NBC parent company Comcast. He also wrote on Twitter, “I wonder if they’ll treat me as well as Sleepy Joe?”

Guthrie opened the night seeking answers from Trump about when he last remembered having tested negative for COVID-19, and whether he had tested negative on the day of the first presidential debate on Sept. 29. Trump did not provide a definitive answer but said that he “probably did” and that he is “test all the time.” He said he first tested positive on Oct. 1.

The “Today” show anchor asked Trump a series of questions related to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as SARS-CoV- 2. She asked whether he should have “known better” than to hold events at the White House, such as the one on Sept. 26 to announce the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Trump responded that the White House conducts plenty of testing, and that as president, he acknowledges the risk of being out and interacting with others but he “can’t be locked in a room some place for the next year and just stay and do nothing,” Trump has been a vocal critic of Biden for campaigning “from his basement.”

Guthrie countered by suggesting that as a leader, Trump should have set an example by wearing a mask. Trump responded by saying that many people are catching the CCP virus and that even those who wear masks are catching the disease.

When asked by a voter whether his views on masks have changed since he contracted the CCP virus, Trump responded, “No, because I was ok with the masks. I was good with it. But I’ve heard many different stories on masks.”

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/15/biden-muddles-through-gentle-hunter-free-town-hall/

Biden’s softball town hall did not instill confidence.

Joe Biden came into Thursday night’s town hall, which was originally supposed to be a debate, stung by new allegations of influence-peddling involving his son Hunter. The question on everyone’s mind going in was whether he would be allowed to answer any question harder than chocolate or tapioca? With social media strangling the Hunter story from the New York Post, the nation’s oldest continuous daily newspaper, and Twitter going dark after criticism, it was up to old media, ABC News, to act responsibly and ask the question.

Joe appeared with Greek heartthrob George Stephanopoulos. They started off with a question from a Democrat who was dismayed by Trump’s response to COVID-19. What would Biden have done differently? Now listen, carefully. He wanted more access to China; so did Trump. After that? Biden wrote a USA op-ed. But he can point to nothing he would have done substantively differently from Trump’s response. Nothing. This is important. According to Democrats, Trump killed 200,000 people, but they can’t say what they would have done differently.

Biden’s big plan going forward seems to be a mix of big signs about masks in stores, ventilation systems, and bearing the example of wearing a mask. On vaccines, Biden referred to the body of scientists, whatever that means, and said that if they said it was OK, he would take it. But he reminded us that Trump lies and we should be careful.

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/11/02/trump%E2%80%88yes/#slide-1

Just look at the alternative

As I write this, the outcome of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court is not yet known. Besides observing that she is eminently qualified, there is just one thing we can say with confidence: The president trying to seat a third justice on the nation’s highest judicial tribunal is not Hillary Clinton. 

Those two words, “Hillary Clinton,” more than any others that can be uttered, explain why Donald J. Trump is president of these United States. 

Out of the 17 Republicans who sought the party’s 2016 nomination, Mr. Trump was at or near the bottom of my preference list. More times than I can count, I’ve argued that the best thing he had going for him in the final showdown against the Democrats was . . . the Democrats — in particular, their nominee. 

Plus ça change . . .

But Trump is unfit, many proclaim. Tell me about it. Conservatives and Republicans have made that case with great persuasive force since the New York real-estate magnate first announced his candidacy in summer 2015. The consuming narcissism, nonstop dissembling, infantile outbursts, inability to admit error, withering attacks on well-meaning officials he entices into working for him — though Trump has been a much better president than I thought he’d be, it’s not like the leopard’s spots have faded away. 

The indictment continues: Trump is unprincipled — that’s the modifier invoked by those without patience for the grand-master designation preferred in MAGA Land, transactional. The norms he is demolishing are not, in fact, musty, deep-state relics; they are, to the contrary, the essence of the presidency, of its capacity to influence world events for the better. So deep runs his solipsism, so thin is his skin, that he cannot — not will not, cannot — distinguish between his own petty interests and the vital interests of the nation. Nor can he spot friends from foes, thus becoming infatuated with the rogues who flatter him and antagonistic toward allies anxious to preserve the post–World War II international order and America’s stabilizing centrality in it. His social-media fusillades, more befitting Don from Queens on his fourth beer in the saloon than the leader of the free world, degrade the office, undermine the rule of law (Attorney General Bill Barr has said that the president’s tweets sometimes “make it impossible for me to do my job”), and confuse both American officials and foreign powers regarding what the position of the United States is on matters of great importance. 

We could go on, as some have indeed gone on in this vein for four years running. Yet this argument has always missed the point. The most compelling case for Trump has never been Trump. It has always been, and remains, Trump . . . as opposed to what?

https://www.nationalreview.com/ne

Hunter Biden entered into a consulting contract with China’s largest private energy company that initially earned him $10 million a year “for introductions alone,” according to leaked emails.

In an email chain from Aug. 2, 2017, Biden discussed a deal with the former chairman of CEFC China Energy, Ye Jianming, saying Ye agreed to change the terms of Biden’s three-year consulting contract with CEFC, which initially promised Biden $10 million per-year “for introductions alone,” to make it “much more lasting and more lucrative,” the New York Post reported, although the authenticity of the Biden emails has not been independently confirmed.

The new deal included a 50 percent equity stake in a holding company created by Ye rather than the $10 million in annual cash that had been previously negotiated.

“The chairman changed that deal after we me[t] in MIAMI TO A MUCH MORE LASTING AND LUCRATIVE ARRANGEMENT to create a holding company 50% percent [sic] owned by ME and 50% owned by him,” Biden wrote in one email.

www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/huge-trump-gains-7-points-joe-biden-one-week-still-holds-23-approval-black-voters/

HUGE! Trump Gains 7 Points on Joe Biden in ONE WEEK and Still Holds 23% Approval with Black Voters Jim Hoft

https://www.israelunwired.com/joe-bidens-world-is-crashing-down/

Joe Biden’s World Is Crashing Down

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2020/10/15/trumps-momentum-is-back-n2577997?

Trump’s Momentum Is Back
Kurt Schlichter

https://rumble.com/vaebnx-media-unwilling-to-explore-hunter-biden-business-dealings-author-peter-schw.html

Media unwilling to explore Hunter Biden business dealings, author Peter Schweizer says

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/the-hunter-emails-report/

According to a 2015 email, then–vice president Joe Biden met with a top executive at Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm that paid Biden’s son, Hunter, $50,000 a month to sit on its board. Earlier, the Burisma executive had asked Hunter to use his influence to quell Ukrainian government officials who were trying to extort the company. Months later, Vice President Biden coerced the Ukrainian government into firing a prosecutor who says he was gearing up an investigation of Burisma.

The evidence that Vice President Biden gave access to the company that was paying his son is disputed. It comes from emails stored on the hard drive of a laptop computer that appears to be Hunter Biden’s. The emails were disclosed in a report by the New York Post.

The Post was alerted to the hard drive’s existence by Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser. The paper received a copy of the hard drive from Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. A Biden spokesman claims that, according to Biden’s official schedule, he never met with the Burisma official. Obviously, that does not prove that the meeting did not happen, any more than the email, by itself and without more authentication, proves beyond a doubt that it did happen.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/14/except-for-locked-down-blue-states-americas-economic-recovery-from-covid-19-is-amazingly-strong/

The nation’s corporate media have mostly downplayed or ignored the U.S. economy’s remarkable performance following the COVID-19 lockdowns earlier this year. They have completely ignored how pandemic-related economic restrictions in many states have prevented the ongoing recovery from being even stronger.

In just five months, the unemployment rate has fallen by 45 percent from its April peak of 14.7 percent, and the economy has also regained just over half of the 22.2 million jobs lost in March and April. This is a far better performance than most economists expected. Media outlets far and wide, and even the Congressional Budget Office, originally predicted that it would take ten years for the economy to fully recover.

The government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) told us on Oct. 2 that the nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in September was 7.9 percent (down from 8.4 percent in August), and that the economy added 661,000 jobs during the month.

Both CNBC and the Associated Press emphasized that September’s job additions were a sharp drop from the nearly 1.5 million jobs added in August. Both outlets failed to tell readers how volatile government hiring affected these results.

In August, 1.02 million jobs were added in the private sector while government employment increased by 467,000. September saw an increase of 877,000 jobs in the private sector and 216,000 jobs lost in government, primarily in local education. Coming in just 14 percent lower than August, September’s private-sector result was hardly the major “loss of momentum” CNBC and the AP claimed.