National

In case you have not read the New York Times inside story on the final week of the Trump campaign, it is a must read. We learn that Corey Lewandowski, CNN's pro-Trump "analyst", "still talk[s] to the candidate frequently," that Ivanka Trump "discouraged" the campaign from promoting her own ad for her father, fearing it would damage her own businesses (I hope she is bankrupt next year); that Trump's inner circle finally wrestled his phone and Twitter away from him; that Steve Bannon's pants literally caught fire while helping to write one of Trump's speeches (bringing new meaning to liar liar pants on fire); that Trump doesn't use a computer and, apparently, can't wrap his mind around the idea that other people do, so he "rails against the campaign’s expenditure of tens of millions on digital ads, skeptical that spots he never sees could have any effect;" that Trump's Gettysburg speech was supposed to be something more dignified and highbrow, but Trump "insisted" that he instead use the event to lash out at women accusing him of sexual assault; and that Trump does not do well with alone-time.

Aboard his gold-plated jumbo jet, the Republican nominee does not like to rest or be alone with his thoughts, insisting that aides stay up and keep talking to him. He prefers the soothing, whispery voice of his son-in-law. He requires constant assurance that his candidacy is on track. [...] And he is struggling to suppress his bottomless need for attention.

The article opens with the revelation that Donald Trump is not sleeping, and the end of the article says that Trump believes that he will win. The latter is probably because of the former. We also learn that Trump has fired his pollster and so all these late campaign moves, visits to Minnesota and Michigan are not because his campaign has numbers showing close races (as they have been lying about), but because his aides decided to literally play around with the 270towin electoral college simulation game to find different paths to 270. I'm serious. So all these Democrats here and elsewhere who have been so fearful of the Trump surge should perhaps change their sheets and buck up. He is who we thought he was.

“Donald Trump was rushed offstage by security guards not long after he began speaking on Saturday night at a rally in Reno, Nev., in a startling scene that was not immediately explained,” the New York Times reports. “Two members of Mr. Trump’s security detail raced toward Mr. Trump, with one of them grabbing him and forcibly escorting him away from the lectern. Moments before, Mr. Trump had seemed to notice a commotion in the crowd in front of him. As he was led away, video from the event appeared to show people near the stage subduing someone in the audience.” That someone is a Republican who is against Trump, who was trying to lift a sign. Scaredy cat coward Trump supporters yelled "GUN!" and then they all started to beat the man on the ground. The Trump campaign then tried to claim that it was an assassination attempt by a Hillary supporter. The Secret Service and ABC News reports that there was no gun or attempted assassination.

So, the Associated Press has verified that Melania Trump entered the country in 1996 on a visa that did not permit her to work, but she immediately went to work on modeling jobs from actual U.S. citizens and foreigners who had actual work visas. This is precisely what her husband has been railing against. I could give a shit about Melania's immigration status. But it proves that she and her husband and every single person who supports them are not only hypocrites, but flaming evil racists. Illegal immigration of white people from white Eastern Europe is ok, because they are white. Illegal immigration of brown people from the Middle East or Latin America is not ok because they are brown.

At POLITICO, Steven Shepard brings us the campaign expert consensus that Hillary Clinton has the superior ground game:

The presidential race may be tightening, but Democrats are convinced they have an Election Day ace-in-the-hole: Hillary Clinton's ground game. They're confident it will withstand Donald Trump’s late surge in key battleground states. [...] Democratic insiders are most confident in Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin. They express more uncertainty in Florida and Iowa. [...] Insiders in both parties agree that Hillary Clinton has the advantage in Colorado, where every ballot with be cast by mail for the first time in a presidential election. “For the first time ever, Democrats are outpacing Republicans in ballot returns,” said a Colorado Democrat — who, like all insiders, completed the survey anonymously. “In the past, only on Election Day itself did more Democrats vote than Republicans. This year, there has been only one day when the Republicans outpaced the Democrats. Something special is happening here.”