Good morning and happy Canadian Beer Day to our brothers from the North. In other exciting news, particularly for landlords of abandoned strip malls, Spirit Halloween is branching out this year with Spirit Christmas stores. They’re starting with 10 in the Northeast as a test before hopefully going nationwide soon after.

LAW

🗳️ Parties take the electoral fight to court

Can’t beat ‘em? Don’t join ‘em. Sue ‘em. Democrats and Republicans both have been waging a quiet legal war for 2024. Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed all over the country challenging everything from voter registration rules to early voting rules to vote-counting methods to a New York prisoner’s presence on Alaska’s ballot. Let’s take a look at some election warfare lawfare cases around the country. Some are more legitimate than others…

Everybody loves third parties. That is, until you think the random Legal Marijuana Now Party candidate — not to be confused with the Grassroots–Legalize Cannabis Party — may have cost your team the election. Which is why Democrats have spent the past year trying to kick left-wing third-party presidential candidates off the ballot… while Republicans have fought to keep them on.

The shoe is on the other foot in Wisconsin. Democrats are panicking over the Senate seat they’re defending in Wisconsin. Their internal polls have Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) leading her challenger, businessman Eric Hovde (R) by just 2% as Republicans dominate the airwaves. Democrats also happen to be funding a right-wing third-party candidate in the race in a bid to split the anti-Baldwin vote. Republicans filed a complaint over the fake conservative group that convinced this guy to run.

Civil rights groups sued the state of Georgia this week in a bid to extend the state's voter registration deadline by a week due to Hurricane Helene. Advocates are pushing for a similar extension in Florida.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Alabama for clearing supposedly inactive voters (those who may have moved, died, etc.) off of the voter list too close to Election Day.

A Republican advocacy group filed a lawsuit in Arizona. They want to give a judge the ability to toss suspicious election results and order a new vote....in two counties where Harris is leading in the polls.

The Georgia Election Board voted on party lines to demand a hand count of every vote on Election Day. Now it’s in a legal fight with Atlanta's home of Fulton County. The state wants to send election monitors, which is a normal practice. But Fulton claims these specific monitors are 2020 election deniers.

Oregon accidentally registered 1,259 noncitizens to vote. It’s a noncompetitive, heavily Democratic state, but the state’s goof opens it up to challenges in any close races. Especially after Republicans failed in their quest to kick the Libertarians off the ballot (they succeeded at that over in Iowa).

GOVERNMENT

💧 President Biden announced a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule yesterday. Virtually every lead water pipe in the country must be replaced in the next 10 years. Water utilities will be on the hook for the $20 to $30 billion replacement cost. But the feds have $15 billion set aside to help. The EPA claims the change will prevent low birthweight in infants and heart disease in adults.

🌀 President Biden postponed his overseas trip to Germany and Angola (in Southern Africa) due to Hurricane Milton. The Category 5 storm should make landfall sometime today near Tampa, Florida. Analysts believe it could cause up to $250 billion in damage to the Tampa and Fort Myers regions on Florida's west coast before re-entering the Atlantic on Thursday. For a wild video, check out the government's hurricane hunters — uniformed military-like officers at NOAA — flying into the storm to collect data.

📱 TikTok's got another legal fight on its hands. Thirteen state governments, via their respective attorneys general (AGs), are suing the company for "intentionally" targeting kids with addictive software that harms their mental health. This is on top of similar, privacy-related lawsuits from the feds and two other states. Additionally, TikTok is still fighting the law set to ban the app in January.

POLITICS

🗯️ CNN gives ultimatum for final debate

After last week’s notoriously civil, Midwest Nice™ vice presidential debate, America may not be ready to go back to the big leagues. But CNN sure does. Out of the goodness of its corporate heart, CNN has repeatedly offered to host a final debate on October 23. Harris is in, but Trump has thus far refused. The network gave him an ultimatum of Thursday, October 10 at noon Eastern. If they don't get the "yes" by then, the debate will be officially canceled.

Donald Trump’s campaign is denying claims in a new book that he has held multiple phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office. The book also claims Trump sent a batch of COVID-19 tests to a terrified Putin for personal use during the 2020 shortage. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the reports “made-up stories.”

• Elon Musk will hit the campaign trail for Donald Trump over the next few weeks. He'll reportedly focus on the ever-important state of Pennsylvania, where he attended college.

• During his speech at last weekend's Trump rally, Musk touted a $47 referral bonus for registering swing-state voters.

Kamala Harris goofed during her appearance on The View when she whiffed on an opportunity to run away from the man who boasts a whopping 37% approval rating. When asked what she would do differently than President Biden, Harris responded with, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” The Trump campaign quickly jumped on that one.

• Harris reiterated yesterday that she would, in keeping with a recent off-party tradition, appoint a Republican to her cabinet (Trump made a similar promise). When pushed on if that might be Liz Cheney, Harris declined to say.

A group of porn stars has jumped into the political arena. Seventeen of America’s finest artistic talents pitched in $100,000 to launch an online ad campaign (on porn sites, of course) slamming the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 for its proposed ban on porn.

TRIVIA

According to a lil nugget from Congress’s in-house number crunchers, the federal budget deficit passed $1.8 trillion in 2024. The budget hasn’t been balanced since 2001, so the government’s IOU pile just keeps ballooning. To the nearest trillion, what is the current estimated U.S. national debt?

Hint: We’re looking at just over $105,000 per person.

WORLD

🇲🇽 Mexico’s new president plans anti-cartel security push

Frank Sinatra once crooned about flying down to Mexico's beautiful Acapulco Bay. On Sunday, a nearby city's mayor was found beheaded just six days after taking office. Elsewhere, the Mexican Army engaged in open gunfights with cartels and twelve people were murdered simultaneously. And that's all within the past week. Needless to say, Acapulco’s not exactly a common destination these days.

Mexico's energetic new president says she's got a plan to fix this mess. Claudia Sheinbaum took office on October 1 as Mexico's first female president. Yesterday, she announced a new security strategy to take on cartel violence and beef up Mexico's intelligence capabilities in the process.

Her strategy involves neutralizing criminals in especially high-crime areas first. That starts with the six most violent of Mexico’s 31 states (Mexico’s official name is the United Mexican States). Bigger, stronger intel agencies will lead a new, national system with better coordination between agencies. The U.S. created the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 for similar reasons.

• She also wants the feds to evaluate local and state-level cops and prosecutors. Just this week, the Mexican Army disarmed a 1,000-member local police force for corruption.

Sheinbaum is hoping to succeed where her predecessor failed. His root cause-focused “hugs not bullets” strategy was widely panned. His term also saw a breakdown in U.S.-Mexican security cooperation and dramatic increases in cross-border gun and drug traffic.

• The U.S. believes cooperation will improve with Sheinbaum. However, her top security official says the old “hugs” plan is sticking around. And some American officials aren’t so sure about that.

The State Department has travel advisories up for all but two Mexican states and cartels control about one-third of Mexico’s territory. So Claudia Sheinbaum's got her work cut out for her.

BRIEFS

• Putin demolishes $1 billion vacation palace, scared to visit over Ukrainian drone threat

• French fry producers hurting as Americans revolt against rising fast food prices

• Osama bin Laden’s artist son kicked out, banned from France for alleged pro-terrorism views

• Oklahoma changes Bibles in schools plan that seemed to require Trump-backed version

• As Israel's war expands, Hezbollah drops demand for truce in Gaza as condition for truce in Lebanon

• Georgia abortion limits back on for now as state’s high court tosses lower court ruling

• Russia throws American man in prison for six years alleged Ukraine support

• Walmart expands pet business, opens five new in-store vet and grooming shops

• Federal judge orders Google to ease up on third-party Android app stores

• OpenAI lands content deal with Hearst, including dozens of major magazines and newspapers

QUOTE

ANSWER

Years and years of budget deficits add up. As of October 2024, America’s national debt is sitting pretty at just under $36 trillion, which is about 124% of our annual economy.