TYLER O’NEIL: 5 Reasons to Trust the Hunter Biden Emails as Legitimate.

Related (From Ed): Uh Oh: It Looks as Though Hunter’s Laptop Is Part of an Even Bigger Probe.

UGH: Senate Democrats Block COVID-19 Stimulus Bill—AGAIN.

TODAY AT 3:30PM EASTERN: VIP Gold Live Chat with VodkaPundit, Kruiser, and Preston.

I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS: #MeToobin Gets Mockworthy: CNN’s Brian Stelter Claims It Was an ‘Accident.’

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Amazon Buckles, Agrees to Stream ‘What Killed Michael Brown?’ “Conservatives, not black film orgs, help bring searing documentary to the public.”

The protagonists in the real-life saga come as no surprise to anyone paying attention.

GOOD LORD:

Meanwhile: CNN Demands Trump Stop Talking About Hunter Biden Scandal.

MATT MARGOLIS: This Tiny Detail Buried in Federal Subpoena May Bolster Giuliani’s Claim That Hunter’s Laptop Contained Pics of Underage Girls.

SAY ANYTHING: FCC trying to help Trump win election with Twitter crackdown, Democrats say. “Pai’s Section 230 plan called a ‘reckless and politically motivated stunt’.”

No, it’s an attempt to put a stop to social media’s ongoing reckless and politically motivated stunts.

SWEDEN IS DOING A LOT OF SMART THINGS: Sweden Bans Huawei, ZTE From Its Upcoming 5G Telecom Networks.

MADE IN CHINA: Defense Experts Blast Biden’s Taiwan Policy.

Biden’s own record on Taiwan, as well as the public writings of his top foreign-policy surrogates and advisers, hints at potentially dangerous policies for both the United States and Taiwan. In 2001, Biden authored an op-ed arguing that U.S. support for the country could “draw us into a war across the Taiwan Strait.” Meanwhile, recent editorials from some of Biden’s top Indo-Pacific advisers spell out a vision for Taiwan that would downplay U.S. military backing, cut defense spending, and rely on more flexible deterrence to counter Beijing. Zack Cooper, China scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said such measures would only fuel Chinese ambitions in the region.

“You will see some serious downward pressure on the defense budget,” Cooper told the Washington Free Beacon. “I think the Democrats know that this is going to be a real tension.”

Carafano lodged similar complaints. “The problem with our enemies is that they can all count,” he said. “We can do all this stuff about how we are going to be smarter on defense…. That has zero impact on great-power competition.”

The Biden campaign did not return a request for comment about Democrats’ past handling of Taiwan, including his eight-year tenure as vice president.

Beijing got good value for their dollars.

GROSS: Here’s a Sampling of the Hunter Biden Texts Giuliani Turned Over to the Police. “The texts appear to implicate Democratic nominee Joe Biden in covering up his son’s alleged sexual abuse and in taking part in some of Hunter Biden’s deals.”

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Another Debate, Another Partisan Hack Moderator.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: Could we maybe get just one debate with a moderator who isn’t a partisan Democrat swamp creature?

Answer: No. Don’t be silly.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• Joy Behar is thankful for Jeffery Toobin’s schwanzstucker.
• Memo to NeverTrumpers: It’s OK to admit you’re Democrats.
• Meet the restraunteurs who deep-fried Pennsylvania’s lockdown.

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

BREAK THEM UP: Chrome won’t clear your Google and YouTube data — even if you tell it to. “Browser retains site data in defiance of privacy settings.”

GEE, THANKS: Mark Zuckerberg Said Facebook Will Have Fewer Bans After The Election.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Early Voting Is Why None of the Hunter Biden Stuff Matters. “There are record numbers of people voting early this year. So many ballots have been cast at this point that Joe Biden might be able to murder someone on live television and not have it affect the election.”

OH: Instagram Refuses to Remove ‘Black Art’ Image Showing Severed Heads of White People. “People may express themselves differently.”

I doubt that would be Instagram’s policy if the roles were reversed.

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Biden Adviser, Obamacare Architect, Now Makes Money By Keeping You On Lockdown.

JOANNE JACOBS: Elite SF school will admit by lottery in ’21. “At a chaotic virtual school board meeting, board member Alison Collins, apparently thinking she was muted, said ‘I’m listening to a bunch of racists’.”

21ST CENTURY ASW: Navy Plans Hammerhead Mines To Box In Chinese, Russian Subs. “The Navy is inching closer to fielding a new anti-submarine mine designed to deploy from underwater drones and loiter for weeks at a time around critical chokepoints, looking for enemy submarines to sink.”

China’s naval problem is that their best ports are all behind strategic chokepoints, a problem “Hammerhead” would compound.

Of course, that all changes if Beijing were to take Taiwan.

‘WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT’ IS THE NEW NORMAL: The Toobin Zoom Call Is Even Worse Than We Thought. Here’s What They Were Talking About.

VOTE YOUR POCKETBOOK: 50 Cent Endorses Trump After Discovering Biden Tax Plan: ‘I Don’t Want to Be 20 Cent.’

MONTY PYTHON WEPT: Facebook censors and penalizes The Babylon Bee for the most ridiculous article ever. “So after a manual review, Facebook says they stand by their decision to pull down this article and demonetize our page. I’m not kidding. They say this article ‘incites violence.’ It’s literally a regurgitated joke from a Monty Python movie!”

NEWS YOU CAN USE? Here’s How to Avoid Accidentally Showing Your Genitals to Your Colleagues on Zoom.

VIDEO: Shrieking Harpies Accost Lindsey Graham at the Airport—and Instantly Regret It.

CHARLES LIPSON: Recent news about Hunter Biden’s emails puts our country’s institutions in a harsh spotlight.

Since the New York Post story broke last Wednesday, the Biden campaign has been curiously silent. Reporters expected swift denials that the computer was Hunter’s and that the emails were his. Crickets. Crickets, too, about the Cooney emails.

Instead, the Biden campaign has maintained strict radio silence, like Allied ships traversing the North Atlantic during World War II. Loose lips might sink Biden’s ship of state. So far, the former vice president’s only public comment has been to snarl at a CBS reporter who dared raise the question. It was all a “smear,” Biden said. Other reporters didn’t even bother to ask or questioned the story’s sources and moved on. George Stephanopoulos of ABC News conducted a 90-minute town hall with Biden after the Post story broke and never raised the issue. Nor did Biden himself raise it so he could swat it down as false. The mainstream media has buried the story, as have the country’s two social media giants. Twitter initially blocked links to the New York Post story before eventually changing tack and allowing it to be shared. The company has still blocked the Post’s Twitter account until it withdraws the links to the story, which it has so far refused to do. Meanwhile, Facebook publicly flagged the Post story for review, which normally reduces readership by 80%. Attempts to smother a major political news story like this, published in a major newspaper, are unprecedented.

One major Biden ally has come forward to defend his party’s candidate. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who chairs the House Select Committee on Intelligence, says flatly that the Delaware emails are a Russian disinformation campaign. Other Democrats have backed him up. Prominent mainstream news outlets haven’t gone that far, although they have dropped hints to support Biden and Schiff, saying the “FBI is investigating” whether the emails are Russian disinformation. The implication is, “It’s questionable.”

Is there any basis for these claims of fraud and disinformation? None, so far.

Biden the Elder has called a lid until Thursday night’s debate, which is a long naptime even for him.