Category: Opinion

An unknown aircraft was intercepted by the United States Air Force after it was spotted flying to close for comfort over President Trump’s campaign rally in Arizona.

According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, several F-16s were dispatched and signal flares were launched before attempting to establish radio contact and escort the place out of restricted airspace “without further incident.”

NORAD reports the unidentified general aviation aircraft was not in communication with Air Traffic Controls and invaded the Temporary Flight Restriction area surrounding Bullhead City, Arizona, without authorized clearance around 2 p.m. on Wednesday. The aircraft did not initially respond to intercept procedures.

(2/2) The violating aircraft was non-responsive to initial intercept procedures, but established radio communications after NORAD aircraft deployed signal flares. The aircraft was escorted out of the restricted area by the NORAD aircraft without further incident. #WeHaveTheWatch

— North American Aerospace Defense Command (@NORADCommand) October 28, 2020

President Trump was speaking to the crowd in the battleground state just six days before Election Day when he heard the roar of the fighter jets overhead.

“I love that sound,” Trump said. “You don’t know what I went through to get those suckers up there. I had to get that money from the Democrats.”

The jets then launched the flares and the president pointed to the sky.

“Oh, look at that. Look, look, look,” he yelled. “Look at that. They gave the president a little display.” The crowd then chanted “USA, USA, USA!”

MUST WATCH: Fighter jet flies over @realDonaldTrump rally in #Arizona pic.twitter.com/36d9yunzEm

— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) October 28, 2020

Trump then used the incident as a segway to tell the crowd that the plane is a fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. He then jokingly said, “You know how hard it is to get Democrats to pay for that?”

It a federal ruling Tuesday the United States Postal Service has been ordered to revoke rules recently put in place by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and carry out extra trips needed to ensure the delivery of election mail.

Judge Emmet Sullivan, who made the order, determined that the USPS must notify staff members that guidelines from July 14th no longer apply and that “personnel are instructed to perform late and extra trips to the maximum extent necessary” equal to or greater than the rate before those guidelines were issued, in order to increase timely mail delivery, especially related to the election.

“Defendants shall issue a one-page notice to, or deliver a Stand-Up Talk to, all USPS personnel who may have job responsibilities related in any way to late and extra trips,” Sullivan added, “stating that: ‘Late and extra trips will be approved to the maximum extent necessary to increase on-time mail deliveries, particularly for Election Mail.”

“Any prior communication that is inconsistent with this should be disregarded,” he added. “To be clear, late and extra trips will be approved to the same or greater degree than they were performed prior to July 2020 when doing so would increase on-time mail deliveries.’”

In addition to the ruling, Sullivan also ordered USPS to distribute information to staff concerning each state’s deadlines for accepting ballots so that they can guarantee timely delivery.

In order to make certain that the Postal Service carries out its duties, Sullivan is ordering that the USPS provide the court with regular updates that include the number of extra and late trips that were needed the previous day, any available election mail data, as well as the rate of on-time deliveries.

Following the order, USPS made a statement saying that between now and November its number one priority is the secure, timely delivery of the United States Election Mail and that it is “deploying extraordinary measures” including “expedited handling, extra deliveries, and special pickups” as it has done for elections in the past.

Five days after the last presidential debate Google had a huge spike in searches of the phrase “Can I change my vote?” As of Sunday, a record-breaking 60 million Americans have already cast their vote for the 2020 Presidential Election but some are wondering if they can change that at the last minute.

President Trump is unbothered about the Google trend, even encouraging voters to “go do it,” and is confident that the trend “refers to changing it to me.”

Strongly Trending (Google) since immediately after the second debate is CAN I CHANGE MY VOTE? This refers changing it to me. The answer in most states is YES. Go do it. Most important Election of your life!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2020

Delaware, the state which Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has represented for 36 years, was one of the subregions where the phrase began trending on social media.

While most states, including Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Arizona, will not allow you to vote more than once there are some states that will allow you to change your early vote with restrictions.

In New York, for example, if you have already submitted an absentee ballot but later change your mind, you can go to your local polling place during early voting or on Election Day and cast a new vote. Your absentee ballot will then be set aside and not counted.

It’s a little more complicated in Michigan where voters who have already submitted a ballot must write and sign a request to have the original ballot nullified and deliver it to their voting clerk by 5 p.m. on October 30.

In Minnesota, voters only have until October 20 to request a new ballot from their county or city election office.

Voters in New Hampshire who submitted an absentee ballot should go to the polls within the first hour of opening on Election Day and vote in person before their absentee ballot is counted.

Wisconsin voters have until October 29, the legal deadline for requesting absentee ballots by mail, to cancel their original ballot and request a new one by mail.

Senator Mike Lee is accusing Senator Ed Markey, Democrat, of being “patently irresponsible” for calling the judicial originalism “racist, sexist, homophobic, and a fancy word for discrimination.”

Lee said on “Fox & Friends,” Of all the irresponsible and inflammatory statements I’ve heard over the last few weeks, and I’ve heard some doozies, this might well be the worst.”

“If you think about what he is really saying there, Sen. Markey has essentially said that our Constitution is racist. And [that] an effort to understand it, understand its words at the time they were written, is itself racist and bigoted,” said Lee. “I can’t think of a statement that has a greater tendency to undermine the foundation of our constitutional republic. I hope, expect, and demand that Sen. Markey retract his statement. It is irresponsible; he can’t defend that.”

Markey criticized Amy Coney Barrett for the judicial philosophy she supports before her confirmation vote on Monday night.

“Originalism is racist. Originalism is sexist. Originalism is homophobic. Originalism is just a fancy word for discrimination,” Markey said in a tweet.

Lee pointed out that if Barrett’s confirmation in “making the heads of Democrats explode everywhere,” it is only because they would rather have the Supreme Court be “institutions of social policy.”

“Look,” said Lee, “for President Trump, this was the SCOTUS trifecta that he managed to pull off. In his first term alone, having put three justices on the U.S. Supreme Court… That doesn’t happen very often and I am glad that it did.”

“They don’t want the courts to be limited to judging institutions,” Lee added. “They want them to be institutions of social change, of social policy, they want them to take debatable matters beyond debate and, so, that is why this isn’t satisfying to them.”

As for Justice Barrett, Lee thinks she “is going to be terrific.”

Daniel Dale is a fact-checker over at CNN, which as you may know is famously anti-Trump. So it was surprising when he offered multiple rulings against Joe Biden over claims the Democratic presidential nominee made during last week’s presidential debate.

Dale appeared on CNN’s post-debate coverage to talk about the heated exchange between Trump and Biden over the former vice president’s stance on fracking.

Biden claims to have never been opposed to fracking but Trump has video evidence that he did.

“You said it on tape!” Trump said.

“Show the tape! Put it on your website!” Biden exclaimed. “The fact of the matter is, he’s flat-lying.”

Dale reluctantly credited the president for being correct about the issue.

“So in this case, Trump is correct. Biden did make anti-fracking comments in 2019 and 2020, and Trump was not lying,” Dale said to anchor Anderson Cooper.

The Trump campaign did immediately put up a montage video of Biden repeatedly opposing fracking on their website. Dale played a clip from a debate during the Democratic primary campaign during which Biden was questioned if there would be “any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration.”

“No,” Biden said in the clip. “We would work it out. We would make sure that it’s eliminated and no more substitutes for either one of those, any fossil fuels.”

Dale pointed out, “So Biden didn’t say the words ‘I oppose fracking’ there, but he clearly was at least very strongly suggesting that he was an opponent.”

The CNN reporter also called Biden out on his claim that “not one single person” lost their health insurance during the Obama administration.

“Biden was flat wrong when he declared last night that ‘not one single person’ lost their private insurance under Obamacare,” Dale wrote in a tweet. “This was litigated at great length during the Obama presidency.”

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden claims that Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the president’s choice to fill the seat left by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wants to countermand the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

During the confirmation hearings, several Democratic senators grilled Barrett about her stance on the ACA but she would not reveal any indication on how she might rule.

Biden touched on the issue while at a rally in Bristol, Pennsylvania, “Trump’s dream of wiping out Obamacare off the books is well underway because his [Supreme Court] nominee has said in the past the law should be struck down.”

“If they get their way, over 100 million Americans, including 5.3 million Pennsylvanians, will lose their protections for preexisting conditions that we worked so hard to provide,” said the former vice president. “Barack Obama and I fought too hard for that and won.”

The Democratic challenger made claims that he will “build on” the ACA so that if people with private insurance want to keep it, they will have that option or “poor” Americans “can choose a Medicare-like option.” He also added that he plans to reduce prescription drug costs by sixty percent.

In 2017 Judge Barrett wrote that Justice John Roberts “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute” in his ruling years earlier that the ACA’s individual mandate penalty was constitutional.

When questioned about her 2017 review during last week’s confirmation hearings Barrett stated that she in fact is “not hostile to the ACA.”

Democratic Senator Corey Booker asked Barrett during the hearings if she would “empathize” with his supporters who fear losing their healthcare if Obamacare is overturned in a case pending before the court in the fall of next year.

“Senator, I could certainly empathize with people who are struggling,” Barrett responded.

She added that she would consider both side’s arguments before ruling and said, “I could empathize with people who lack health care.”

American actress Jennifer Lawrence told Heather McMahan on her podcast “Absolutely Not” about how she really let CNN’s Anderson Cooper have it for his accusations that she faked her fall while walking up the steps to the stage during the 2013 Oscars.

That night Lawrence won the award for Best Actress for her role in “Silver Linings Playbook.” She said she was nervous but prepared in case she won.

“I had everything in my head,” recalled Lawrence during the podcast. “I was very, very nervous but I was ready. All of the adrenaline clears out and they call my name and I’m elated and I’m in shock. And then I fell, and it erased everything from my mind. My full brain went blank. I can look back at it now fondly but for a very long time the fall thing was very sensitive.”

Three days after the incident, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper said of the actress on his show, “Well, she obviously faked the fall.”

Lawrence said his comment was “devastating because it was this horrific humiliation to me.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she continued, “I saw him at a Christmas party and I let him know. My friend told me a vein was bulging out of my eyes. … What I led with was, ‘Have you ever tried to walk upstairs in a ball gown? So then how do you know?”

The actress said Cooper immediately gave a “wonderful” apology, and she believes they are on good terms now.

Lawrence is able to laugh at the whole thing now and joked that he probably told everyone she was “psycho.”

Democratic vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris did not know her mic was hot when she was caught asking her aides what city they were in before addressing supporters over the weekend.

Harris was heard quietly asking, “Are we in Cleveland?” before turning back to the crowd and saying, “Hey Cleveland, it’s Kamala!”

Video of the incident spread quickly across the internet and blew up on social media with retweeters like Eric Trump, President Trump’s son.

A hot mic caught Kamala Harris asking staff "are we in Cleveland?" before she spoke.

cc. OHIO

pic.twitter.com/DFcu2LCGWL

— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) October 25, 2020

Harris’s trip to Cleveland had already been rescheduled after she canceled a week earlier due to a staffer testing positive for the coronavirus.

During the visit, Harris said that supporters should vote in large numbers and stressed the struggles of the middle class because of the coronavirus pandemic. She also suggested that President Trump was stoking racial tensions in American.

In her remarks, Harris also made a gaffe by grossly overstating the death toll of the virus in the United States, saying it had killed “over 220 million” Americans, which is way more than the actual tally of around 224,000.

“You are going to make the difference!” she told the crowd in Cleveland. “You are going to make the decision about your future, about your family’s future. It is through the voice of your vote, and you have the power. The power is with the people, and you know that. That’s why you’re standing in this line today, and I just came to say thank you!”

Meanwhile, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden appeared at a rally in Pennsylvania, and President Trump made stops in states all over the country including Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Ohio.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has received criticism for refusing to answer hard questions and his lack of media appearance so when his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, appeared on “The View” we were hopeful that she would address some of the issues that her husband avoids, such as Hunter Biden’s shady overseas business dealings.

Instead she was given the easy way out and answered questions about President Trump.

The co-hosts of the view started out by asking Mrs. Biden is she was exhausted from the campaign.

“I am meeting so many people as I travel across this country and I’m hearing so many different stories and, honestly, I feel inspired by the people that I’m meeting and I know that we’re going to make such a great change, a positive change in people’s lives.”

The hosts then dove in to asking questions that set her up to bash Trump.

Joy Behar began by asking what Joe Biden would do to help migrant children who had been separated from their parents while trying to cross the southern boarder. Behar said it was a “human rights violation” and asked if the Trump administration should be held responsible.

“We wouldn’t even be here if Joe were president, there would be no separation of families at the border,” said Mrs. Biden. “We have to find a way to reunite these families. As a mother, this breaks my heart. I can’t even imagine it.”

Ana Navarro followed up with asking how Joe Biden would have handled the coronavirus differently than how it was managed under President Trump.

Biden responded, “We can’t do anything until we get this virus under control and you’ve heard the scientists and the doctors, that’s who we’re following and they are saying, ‘Wear your mask, socially distance,’ and we’ve got to come together.”

“This can’t be a political issue, this is a public health issue,” she added, “and if you’re not going to wear your make for yourself, wear it for your neighbor. Do it for someone else.”

Sunny Hostin asked, “Why do you think Trump supporters still believe him over our scientists?”

Biden accused the Trump administration of making the pandemic into a political issue.

Not once was Jill Biden asked about her stepson, Hunter Biden or the bombshell content of his alleged laptop.

Celebrity A-lister Matthew McConaughey expressed his beliefs about the 2020 presidential election while promoting his new book “Greenlights” on “Fox & Friends.”

The 50-year-old Hollywood star said that people should “embrace” the results no matter which way the pendulum swings.

McConaughey spoke about his motto: “When faced with the inevitable, get relative,” and applied that to the race between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden saying, “It’s not inevitable who’s going to win. After that happens, whether it’s an incumbent or whether it’s Biden, after it happens is when it’s time to get constructive and not be in denial.”

The actor advised fans not to get too caught up in thinking, “Oh, I can’t believe this happened” and focus more on the reality of the results.

“It’s time to get constructive and not deny the fact of whatever’s happened and embrace the situation,” McConaughey said of the future president.

“Whoever is going to be commander in chief and president of the United States of America, that’s not something, hopefully, that we’re going to deny or be able to argue,” he added. “I hope it’s a clean election. Whichever way it goes I hope it’s clean and that there’s no debate.”

McConaughey made similar comments about embracing the president back in 2017 during an interview with BBC.

While appearing on “Fox & Friends,” he said that while some people in Hollywood didn’t agree with him, he still received positive reactions.

“People that know me understand what I was talking about,” said the actor.

He also noted the divisiveness of the country and how such topics as the coronavirus pandemic have been politicized.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do as a country,” McConaughey said and called himself “aggressively centric” declaring that when it comes to most issues, “I’ll meet you in the middle.”

“We’ve got to come together whatever happens in this election right now. We can do better as individuals and as people, as a community, as Americans,” he said. “We can do better.”

As for who has McConaughey’s vote we may never know. When questioned about he would only say, “Yeah, I’ve thought about it and I’m keeping that to myself.”