Bill Gates just turned 65.

And remember The MANDARIN? In Ghiradelii Square? That was my generations’ idea of a classy date, and no wonder . Cecilia Chang died recently . Read about it HERE.

From Brian Stelter: ” If Joe Biden prevails next week, it will be — among a hundred other things — a repudiation of this real-is-fake, down-is-up dynamic.”

The Transamerica Pyramid just sold for $615B. I say they overpaid .

Despite my being a media mogul who reads everything that washes into view, I had somehow missed the news that BILL WITHERS had died in March at the age of 82. On my first day of grad school I met a fellow student in the SF State TVC who was making a video using “Grandma’s Hands” . That was my intro to Bill Withers, who went on to make “Just The Two Of Us”, “Lean on Me”. ‘Ain’t No Sunshine” and so many others. Recently I saw an ad for some insurance company (the one where the woman is rolling down the steps in a carpet) and I had to look it up because the voice was so familiar . Sure enough , it was BW and that song was released years ago. Rolling Stone had a piece about him a couple of years ago portraying him as a happy retiree in Beverly Hills enjoying his favorite restaurant every day at lunch. I’m so happy he lived a good long life.

HAPPY HALLOWE’EN everyone!!!!

From the WAPO- read it HERE.

The WAPO has the story. Read it HERE.

From the Washington Post. Trump claims credit for “VA Choice” . Read about it HERE.

who doesn’t like to waste his OWN money on campaign expenses. The WAPO has the story. Read it HERE.

MARC SHORT, the VP’s chief of staff and a longtime fixture of MIKE PENCE’S inner circle, was diagnosed with the virus. MARTY OBST, a Pence political adviser, also has the virus. As do three other PENCE world figures, according to NYT’S MAGGIE HABERMAN.

REMEMBER, PENCE is the head of the White House Covid task force. And his staff is now in the eye of an outbreak.

Why Trump’s latest conspiracy theory can’t stick

“On Saturday at a North Carolina rally, he claimed the media would no longer report on the pandemic after Election Day,” Alexis Benveniste writes. “He implied that news organizations are trying to drum up fear about the pandemic” to get Biden elected. This is a conspiracy theory, full stop. “But facts are facts: Cases are rising sharply and the American public is increasingly at odds with the president’s views on the coronavirus…”

Wolf Blitzer tweeted: “I just checked. While the U.S. and South Korea had their first Covid-19 cases and deaths in February, more than 225,000 Americans have died from the virus since then. South Korea, a country of 55 million, has had fewer than 500 deaths. They controlled the virus. The U.S. didn’t.” (Twitter)

And just as Our Fake President is touting his victory over the virus, reality hits, Read about it HERE.

Just one of the many amazing allegations from Trump on Thursday. Read about it HERE.

And what’s a boy to do? Read about it HERE.

Oliver Darcy writes: “Trump claimed that the full video of the interview revealed ‘bias, hatred, and rudeness’ from Stahl. But the footage revealed no such thing. The interview began with Stahl asking Trump if he was ‘ready for tough questions.’ Trump said that he only wanted Stahl to be ‘fair.’ Stahl asked again, ‘But you’re OK with some tough questions?’ Trump answered, ‘No, I’m not.’ An unusually honest remark by Trump! From there, Trump spent much of the interview accusing Stahl of being biased and ‘negative’ with her questioning…”

Sorry about the link here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/23/hunter-biden-wins-the-debate-431558?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=0000014e-f0fb-dd93-ad7f-f8ff29160002&nlid=630318

And a heartwarming story from LA- right HERE.

And here’s something ELSE to worry about right HERE.

And despite all the hand-wringing about the future of Silicon Valley, Chinese investors are snapping up property quickly, Read about it HERE.

HANG IN THERE! ONLY TEN DAYS TO THE ELECTION!!!

From the WAPO; A PERFECT CALL, PART II … ERIC BOLLING in a town hall with President DONALD TRUMP for Sinclair TV: BOLLING: “With Covid, is there anything that you think you could have done differently? If you had a mulligan or a do-over on one aspect of the way you handled it, what would it be?” TRUMP: “Not much. Look, it’s all over the world. You have a lot of great leaders, a lot of smart people. It’s all over the world. It came out of China. China should have stopped it.”

Bill McKibben from the New Yorker: he Republican-controlled Senate, by any measure, is acting dishonorably as it moves to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the high court: having previously declared that Presidents in their last year in office should not be able to nominate a new Justice, it reversed this “McConnell rule” when it served them to do so. The Trump years have been so ugly that this hypocrisy doesn’t stand out as sharply as it should, but it is an ignoble thing to have done and, in Barrett’s case, to have gone along with.

The Big Pharma story right HERE.

From POLITICO: THIS IS KIND OF INTERESTING TO WATCH. STAHL asks TRUMP at the top if he’s ready for tough questions, and TRUMP says, “I’m not looking for that.” The back and forth seems relatively calm. He seems to have been set off by STAHL observing the crowds at TRUMP’S rallies have gotten smaller. TRUMP: “No, these are much bigger than I ever had. You’re so negative, you’re so negative. These are the biggest rallies we’ve ever had. You just come in here with that negative attitude.”

HAVE FUN TONIGHT!