From TPM Reader JB, a physician and professor at a major academic medical center …

I think we now know what the October surprise will be for the election: It will be the rolling out of a COVID19 vaccine. The CDC has already said that states should prepare for distribution in October/November and the head of the FDA, Stephen Hahn, has said he may Fast Track approval for a vaccine.

This post may take a few deep breaths because it’s hard to have any sympathy for Kyle Rittenhouse. But it’s not about sympathy. TPM Reader BG raises some important legal points – a couple of which had occurred to me as well – about his legal representation. I’ll note as a separate or related matter that Rittenhouse is being represented by a couple of wingnut hucksters, one of whom, Lin Wood, is the celeb right wing lawyer who’s been filing nuisance lawsuits against myriad news organizations on behalf of Nicholas Sandman. From BG …

Rittenhouse is 17, which means he can be a child in need of assistance (CINA) in most states.

He will also be charged as an adult, almost certainly.

Three points:

It’s easy to get lost in the big muddy river of polling data and headlines. But before we get further into the day I wanted to discuss a new group of polls that came out yesterday. This was the first batch of quality polls entirely after the GOP convention. The upshot of really all of them is that “law and order” is not only not helping Trump cut into Biden’s lead. Trump appears to be losing that debate on its own terms. When pollsters ask voters which candidate they trust more to handle civil unrest, protests or crime, they’re picking Biden.

In this week’s edition of The Josh Marshall Podcast we discuss the Democratic fretfest and barreling toward election day. Watch after the jump …

This morning we published two pieces with starkly disturbing headlines within about thirty minutes of each other.

I wanted to update you on some new news on the Falwell/Trump 2016 endorsement scandal. Since we last checked in on this story another Liberty University student has come forward to say that Becki Falwell pursued him sexually. But it’s the Michael Cohen part of this story that remains the really newsworthy part.

As President Trump and the White House collectively go after the Atlantic for its recent report on Trump’s remarks about the late-Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and fallen American soldiers, pundits and journalists across the spectrum are suggesting there’s one person who could easily set the record straight: John Kelly.