Biden said it’s ‘absolutely’ OK to raise taxes during economic downturn | Fox News

Former Vice President Joe Biden defended his plan to repeal President Trump’s tax cuts on the wealthy and said it’s “absolutely” appropriate to raise taxes during a struggling economy.

During an ABC town hall Thursday night, Biden said about $1.3 trillion of Trump’s $2 trillion tax cuts went to the top one percent of earners and he only wants to repeal the tax breaks for the wealthiest of Americans.

“That’s what I’m talking about eliminating, not all the tax cuts that are out there,” Biden said.

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Biden if it was “wise” to raise taxes when the economy is weak right now amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Absolutely,” Biden said and then went on to cite a Moody’s analysis of his tax plan saying it creates jobs and boosts the GDP.

Source: Biden said it’s ‘absolutely’ OK to raise taxes during economic downturn | Fox News

CNN, New York Times spotlight Westmoreland County as key in presidential race | TribLIVE.com

National media outlets are eyeing Westmoreland County as a key battleground in the looming presidential election.

Both CNN and the New York Times this week spotlighted the county in reports, talking to residents and politicians about their efforts to swing the race in favor of either President Donald Trump or his Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

CNN — which called Westmoreland “pivotal” for Trump — spoke with Leslie Rossi, owner of the famous red, white and blue Trump House in Unity, which features a large cutout of the president outside.

“Four years ago, my work was really hard here,” Rossi told CNN. “I had to convince them President Trump was the best choice for them. This time, I don’t have to do any of that. They’re all in.”

Source: CNN, New York Times spotlight Westmoreland County as key in presidential race | TribLIVE.com

Judge Throws Out Trump Campaign’s Pennsylvania Lawsuit

In this case, Trump’s campaign wanted the court to bar counties from using drop boxes or mobile sites to collect mail-in ballots.

HARRISBURG, PA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Saturday threw out a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump’s campaign, dismissing its challenges to the battleground state’s poll-watching law and its efforts to limit how mail-in ballots can be collected and which of them can be counted.

Trump’s campaign said it would appeal at least one element of the decision, with barely three weeks to go until Election Day in a state hotly contested by Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The lawsuit was opposed by the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, the state Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP’s Pennsylvania office and other allied groups.

“The court’s decision today affirms what we’ve long known, that Pennsylvania’s elections are safe, secure, and accurate, and residents can vote on Nov. 3rd with confidence that their votes will be counted and their voices heard,” Wolf’s office said in a statement. “The ruling is a complete rejection of the continued misinformation about voter fraud and corruption, and those who seek to sow chaos and discord ahead of the upcoming election.”

Source: Judge Throws Out Trump Campaign’s Pennsylvania Lawsuit

President Trump to visit Johnstown, Pa. on Tuesday, campaign officials confirm | WTOV

President Donald Trump’s campaign confirmed Saturday that he will be making a stop in Johnstown this week.

The Trump campaign says the President will host a “Make American Great Again” Rally at the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The event will be open to the public with doors opening at 4 p.m.

For ticket information, click here.

Source: President Trump to visit Johnstown, Pa. on Tuesday, campaign officials confirm | WTOV

Biden-Harris hay bale display in Massachusetts set on fire 24 hours after it was finished

‘It’s actually hard to believe anyone who says they love this country would do this,’ the owner of the farm said.

Organizers wanted to create a response to the signs and flags supporting President Donald Trump that outnumber Biden visuals in the rural community.

“We just did it to be heard,” Kate Pike, a manager of the farm, told USA TODAY. “We wanted to be louder.”

More:Polls show Joe Biden leading Donald Trump, but after 2016, should we believe them?

But at 6:42 p.m. Friday night, the Dalton Fire Department arrived at the farm after farmers spotted the 1,000-pound hay bales ablaze.

“Within about 24 hours is when it went up in flames,” Pike said. “So it didn’t take long.”

The Biden-Harris hay bale display in Dalton, Massachusetts after it was set on fire Friday night.

Dicken Crane, the farm’s owner, posted images of the fire on Facebook.

“It’s actually hard to believe anyone who says they love this country would do this,” he wrote.

The Dalton Police Department said they arrested Lonnie Durfee, 49, and charged him with burning personal property. He will be arraigned Tuesday. Police said the investigation is ongoing.

Pike said she doesn’t know the individual personally but heard that he was boasting about the fire to friends shortly afterward.

Source: Biden-Harris hay bale display in Massachusetts set on fire 24 hours after it was finished

‘We’re feeling the pressure’: Can the birthplace of American democracy save the country from election night chaos? | The Independent

This election is inescapable in Pennsylvania. On billboards, posters, on television, spray-painted on the sidewalks and walls, and every time you open up a webpage, the volume of political advertisements are overwhelming.  But it isn’t presidential candidates that are taking up the space. Instead, the ads are more often instructions for voters on how to cast their ballot safely and securely in this most unusual of election years. It’s as if democracy itself is on the ballot here. In many ways, it is.

Source: ‘We’re feeling the pressure’: Can the birthplace of American democracy save the country from election night chaos? | The Independent

Pennsylvania voter registration may be at record high, state official says | Fox News

Nearly 2.5 million people are expected to vote by mail.

Pennsylvania, which is emerging as one of the most critical battleground states in the November election, could see a record-number of voters cast their ballots this year.

“We think that our total voter registration may be at an all-time high,” Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said during a press conference this week.

About 8,908,777 people have registered to vote, Boockvar said, including 4,175,532 Democrats and 3,459,627 Republicans. About 875,191 had no affiliation or identified as independents, and 398,427 identified as other.

Nearly 2.5 million people are expected to vote by mail, according to Boockvar, who noted that this was the total amount of mail-in and absentee ballots that were expected to be approved.

Source: Pennsylvania voter registration may be at record high, state official says | Fox News

‘Thanks, But No Thanks:’ Trump Campaign Reportedly Exploring Holding Event In Pittsburgh On Monday – CBS Pittsburgh

The Trump campaign is reportedly “exploring” a visit to Pittsburgh next week.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Reports say this potential visit from President Donald Trump would not be a rally, where typically hundreds or even thousands could be in attendance.

But the possibility of the president being here, while still having the coronavirus, is not sitting well with some local leaders.

Here’s what a New York Times reporter tweeted last night:

Mayor Bill Peduto responded on Twitter, as well.

Mayor Peduto’s assumption is correct.

However, according to the CDC, if you think or know you had COVID-19, you can be around others after 10 days since symptoms first appeared, have had 24 hours with no fever without the use of medications and you find other symptoms of the virus are improving.

On Wednesday, Sean Conley, President Trump’s doctor said the 74-year-old has been fever-free for more than four days and symptom-free for over 24 hours.

At this point, the Trump campaign has not publicly announced a visit to the city.

We’re also hearing from County Executive Rich Fitzgerald about the President possibly stopping by.

Source: ‘Thanks, But No Thanks:’ Trump Campaign Reportedly Exploring Holding Event In Pittsburgh On Monday – CBS Pittsburgh

Trump campaign calls out second debate moderator who interned for Biden, worked for Ted Kennedy | Fox News

Steve Scully, who serves as a host for C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” interned for Biden after coming to Washington, D.C. as a student, according to Marie Claire. He later worked as a staff assistant for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., a Democratic icon who was honored at the party’s 2012 convention.

On Thursday, one of his tweets resurfaced containing a photo of him with Biden. “Gotta love the @VP at the Biden Beach Bash ’16,” it read.

Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller tweeted in response: “Don’t forget to change before the debate, fellas!”

C-SPAN and The Commission on Presidential Debates did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

Source: Trump campaign calls out second debate moderator who interned for Biden, worked for Ted Kennedy | Fox News

Biden scores big union wins on train trek through Western Pennsylvania | TribLIVE.com

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood Wednesday for former Vice President Joe Biden as he ventured deep into what was the heart of Trump country in Westmoreland County in 2016 to pick up endorsements from two unions that represent 950,000 working people.

Fresh from the spectacle of Tuesday night’s presidential debate in Cleveland and a morning whistle-stop where he greeted supporters at a train station in Alliance, Ohio, Biden and his wife, Jill, headed for friendly territory in Pittsburgh.

There he greeted a small crowd of supporters at a closed event, before continuing on to Greensburg by train, where a crowd of supporters lined the streets to greet him. After that, he headed for a motorcade to a union training center in New Alexandria where he would pick up union endorsements.

 

He ended the evening in a closed meeting at DiSalvo’s Station Restaurant at the Latrobe train station with a handful of invited supporters. The disappointed crowd outside that had hoped to get a glimpse of the Democratic candidate sang “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” the theme song of Latrobe-native Fred Rogers’ children’s television show, while a group of Trump supporters chanted “Go home Joe.”

Source: Biden scores big union wins on train trek through Western Pennsylvania | TribLIVE.com

Democrats see fundraising boom with wild Trump-Biden debate

  • Joe Biden and his party scored a huge fundraising windfall during and after Tuesday night’s acrimonious debate with President Trump.
  • The Democratic fundraising website ActBlue processed close to $8 million between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., according to the site’s live ticker.
  • Rufus Gifford, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, tweeted on Wednesday that he had never received so many “calls/texts/emails from people wanting to give money to the campaign,” than he had in the previous 12 hours.

Source: Democrats see fundraising boom with wild Trump-Biden debate

Westmoreland voters could begin receiving mail-in ballots next week | TribLIVE.com

Mail-in and absentee ballots are expected to be sent out to Westmoreland County voters no later than Saturday.

The state’s late certification of ballots two weeks ago delayed the process and final reviews were not completed until this week, said JoAnn Sebastiani, director of the county’s elections bureau. Pending any last-minute issues, the nearly 50,000 voters and counting who requested mail-in ballots should receive them next week.

“We’re doing the final testing of the ballots to make sure they can be read,” Sebastiani said.

The county bought four digital scanners, two more than were on hand for the June primary, to count mail-in ballots cast during the November election.

Sebastiani said requests continue to flow in to the elections bureau in large numbers and as many as 100,000 voters could skip voting in person at the county’s 307 precincts in favor of casting ballots by mail.

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Source: Westmoreland voters could begin receiving mail-in ballots next week | TribLIVE.com

Trump campaign raises ‘pre-debate inspection for electronic earpieces’ in Biden statement – Chicago Sun-Times

Trump 2020 communications director Tim Murtaugh issued a statement ahead of Tuesday’s debate suggesting that the Trump campaign asked to inspect the former vice president for electronic earpieces before the candidates take the stage.

Source: Trump campaign raises ‘pre-debate inspection for electronic earpieces’ in Biden statement – Chicago Sun-Times

Joe Biden releases 2019 tax returns ahead of presidential debate

The former vice president and his wife, Jill, reported $944,737 in taxable income last year and paid $299,346, or a 31% tax rate, in federal income taxes.

  • Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris just released their 2019 tax returns.
  • Biden’s return shows that he and his wife, Jill, made $944,737 in taxable income last year and paid $299,346, or a 31% tax rate, in federal income taxes.
  • The release came less than 48 hours after The New York Times published an investigation based on more than a decade’s worth of Trump’s tax returns showing that the president paid no federal income taxes for 10 of the past 15 years.

Source: Joe Biden releases 2019 tax returns ahead of presidential debate

Have questions about the election? Target 11 gets answers from woman in charge of elections in Pa. – WPXI

WPXI’s RIck Earle began a one-on-one interview by asking Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar if she feels an added pressure because of the importance Pennsylvania will likely play in deciding the Presidency?

“It’s a critical state for either candidate. Do you feel added pressure?” Earle asked.

“I don’t have a low stress job, but I have the best team in the world,” Boockvar said. “They are working around the clock to make sure every Pennsylvanian gets to vote in a safe secure and accessible election.”

Boockvar is gearing up for the Nov. 3 general election and for an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots because of health concerns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We had almost 1.5 million ballots cast by mail in the primary, and a little over I think over 1.3 million in person. So that was the first time ever that more voters chose to vote by mail than in person, which is great. Allegheny County was one of the top, I think the top county in the state in terms of mail-ins, so we might see 3 million Pennsylvanians take advantage of it in the general election,” Boockvar said.

Source: Have questions about the election? Target 11 gets answers from woman in charge of elections in Pa.

Biden said he was a student at Delaware State University; school says otherwise | Fox News

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden alleged on the campaign trail last year that he had jumpstarted his academic career at Delaware State University.

However, according to a new report in The Washington Times, the historically Black college refutes Biden’s claims.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE COACH PREVIEWS TRUMP-BIDEN MATCHUP

The director of news service for Delaware State, Carlos Holmes, said that the former vice president was never a student, though he has made appearances on campus twice before for commencement speeches at the university in Dover.

Source: Biden said he was a student at Delaware State University; school says otherwise | Fox News

Start of Pennsylvania’s election is on hold because of ballot delay – CNNPolitics

CNN)In the latest sign of the chaos overshadowing the 2020 election, none of Pennsylvania’s counties will be able to send out ballots to voters Monday, the first day the critical battleground state allows counties to do so.

Due to a slew of lawsuits and other issues, the commonwealth, which has drawn intense interest from Democrats and Republicans after June’s disastrous primary, has not finalized its ballot less than eight weeks before Election Day.

Source: Start of Pennsylvania’s election is on hold because of ballot delay – CNNPolitics

First night of RNC 2020 was very effective, to media’s dismay

The first night of the Republican National Convention was, all in all, sensationally effective — and effective in ways that the mainstream media and its Twitter chatterers clearly found it impossible to understand.

America’s opinion leaders loathe Donald Trump so much that it remains a great puzzlement to them how he can retain the support of even 42 percent of the population, rather than, you know, zero.

The implicit theory they share is the “deplorables” theory — that anyone who wants Trump to be and remain president is, at root, a bad person or someone too easily tempted by false promises and evil lies.

If they had ears to listen, they might be able to understand it better after tonight. The message of Night One was twofold.

First, the case was that Trump has done many things to help individual people in extremis — working to release hostages, deregulating certain types of medical treatments, fighting entrenched interests, and leading a strong economy until COVID came along to kill it.

Twitterati laughed at the supposed awkwardness with which Trump interacted with frontline COVID workers and hostages, but what they missed was Trump’s good cheer as he talked to them. These exchanges were actually less weird than the ones last week in which Biden talked to party activists over Zoom.

And second, the case was that Democrats are supporters of urban chaos and socialist policies that will make American lives less safe and will help immiserate the American middle class.

Source: First night of RNC 2020 was very effective, to media’s dismay

Transcript: Elizabeth Warren’s DNC speech – CNNPolitics

(CNN)Read Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s speech to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, as prepared for delivery:

Tonight we’ve heard from the people who make America work, people who put their lives on the line to keep our country going, and since COVID-19 hit, they’ve taken one gut punch after another.
And what has the COVID fallout done to our babies? I’m here at the Early Childhood Education Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, which has been closed for months. Childcare was already hard to find before the pandemic. And now, parents are stuck—no idea when schools can safely reopen and even fewer childcare options.
The devastation is enormous. And the way I see it: big problems demand big solutions.

I love a good plan, and Joe Biden has some really good plans—plans to bring back union jobs in manufacturing and create new union jobs in clean energy. Plans to increase Social Security benefits, cancel billions in student loan debt, and make our bankruptcy laws work for families instead of the creditors who cheat them.

These plans reflect a central truth: our economic system has been rigged to give bailouts to billionaires and kick dirt in the face of everyone else. But we can build a thriving economy by investing in families and fixing what’s broken. Joe’s plan to “build back better” includes making the wealthy pay their fair share, holding corporations accountable, repairing racial inequities, and fighting corruption in Washington.

Source: Transcript: Elizabeth Warren’s DNC speech – CNNPolitics

AOC’s DNC speech was 60 seconds. She made her point — but so did the establishment.

If Democrats want to move forward after this immediate emergency of an election, they need to radically reassess who holds the party’s power and who speaks on its platforms.On Night 2, the convention opened with a mashup of the Democratic Party’s young luminaries, a group of recently elected under-50s across the country, including the woman who should be governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York spoke for only 60 seconds — the amount of time allotted all nomination speeches — but she made the most of them, highlighting the parts of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ platform that are most important to his (and Ocasio-Cortez’s) progressive constituency.

Source: AOC’s DNC speech was 60 seconds. She made her point — but so did the establishment.

Kamala Harris owes over $1M to vendors from failed presidential bid | Fox News

Joe Biden‘s running mate, Kamala Harris, owes more than $1.1 million in unpaid bills from her failed presidential bid, according to filings with the Federal Election Committee.

Harris, a California senator, raised about $39 million during her 2019 campaign to become the Democratic nominee while spending about $40 million, the filings show. She suspended her campaign in December amid a drop in polling and a lack of money.

According to Bloomberg News, which first reported the story, Harris’ campaign owes $523,883 to Perkins Coie LLP, an international law firm whose election lawyers work for top Democrats. TorchStone Global LLC was owed $160,702, and SCRB Strategies, a California political consulting firm, was owed $92,408.

Source: Kamala Harris owes over $1M to vendors from failed presidential bid | Fox News

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