Plexiglas Politics: As always in political debates, what was as important as what was said in last night’s Vice Presidential encounter was what was not said.

  Vice President Mike Pence avoided promising a peaceful transition, and Harris dodged the accusation that Joe Biden plans to expand the Supreme Court and pack it with liberals 

  The two were separated by 12 feet, two plexiglas screens, and perception of reality. As Pence claimed what a great job the Trump administration has done with the pandemic, Harris repeatedly reminded viewers that more than 210,000 Americans are dead. Curiously, she failed to drive home the point that under Pence’s supervision, the virus invaded the White House.  

  Pence behaved as if he is running for mansplainer in chief, repeatedly running over his allotted time. Susan Page of USA Today, failed to control Pence, intoning “Thank you, Vice President Pence, thank you, Vice President Pence.”

  As a woman, and the first non-white woman to run for Vice President, Harris was in the difficult position of standing up for herself without offending male sensibilities: 

Pence: Susan, I have to weigh in here-

Harris: Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.

Mike Pence: I have to weigh in.

Harris: I’m speaking.

  Possibly the most notable moment of the evening was when a fly sat on Pence’s gray hair for two minutes and three seconds. Comedian Stephen Colbert said it was there so long “It changed its voter registration to ‘Mike Pence’s head.’” 

Miracle Man: President Trump returned to work in the Oval Office yesterday, claiming on a video that catching the coronavirus is “a blessing from God” and that the experimental treatment he’s been given is a cure for the disease.

  Praising the drug Regeneron, Trump claimed credit for proving it’s a cure. “I said, ‘Let me take it,’” he said in the video recorded outside the White House. “It was my suggestion. I said, ‘Let me take it,’ and it was incredible the way it worked. Incredible. I think if I didn’t catch it, we’d be looking at that like a number of other drugs, but it really did a fantastic job.”

  Months after the coronavirus was allowed to run rampant in the US, Trump was still blaming China, where it originated. “It was China’s fault,” he said, “and China is going to pay a big price for what they’ve done to this country. China is going to pay a big price for what they’ve done to the world.”

By the Numbers: As Republicans fight to hold the Senate, The Cook Political Report rates the contest between South Carolina’s Republican Lindsay Graham and Democrat Jaime Harrison to be a toss-up.

 In the big picture, the Real Clear Politics average of national polls has former Vice President Joe Biden leading President Trump by 9.1 points. But much of the contest is in the so-called battleground states. Vice President Joe Biden right now leads in polling of all the battleground states; Florida, +4.5; Pennsylvania, +7.1; Michigan, +6.2; Wisconsin, +5.6; North Carolina, +1.4; Arizona, +3.1.

The Voting Fraud: Breaking with the traditional practice of relaxing voter fraud investigations in the midst of an election, the Justice Department says it is pressing ahead with investigations and prosecutions. President Trump and his deputies, among them Attorney Gen. William Barr, have repeatedly claimed without evidence that the expected flood of mail ballots during the pandemic will be rife with fraud.

  It’s not as if nothing ever happens. The US Attorney’s office in New Jersey is prosecuting a postal worker accused throwing away mail, including dozens of ballots which were found in a dumpster and put back in the mail.

Justice Delayed: Six years after the Islamic State beheaded American journalists and aid workers on camera, two men known as part of “the Beatles” because of their British accents, have been brought to the US and charged in federal court with involvement in those deaths.

  The case against Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh in Alexandria, Va., is the first against members of the Islamic State fighters for the murder of American citizens. They were colleagues of the infamous “Jihadi John,” who beheaded prisoners on camera.

  “Although we cannot bring them back, we can and will seek justice for them, their families, and for all Americans,” Attorney General William P. Barr said in a statement.

Write On: Former poet laureate of the United States Louise Glück has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”

  Glück is writer-in-residence at Yale University. She won the Pulitzer Prize for The Wild Iris in 1992.

The Obit Page: Johnny Nash, the singer whose reggae-influenced song “I Can See Clearly Now” hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 1972, has died at his home in Houston at age 80. Nash had limited success as an actor, and fell flat as a crooner in the mold of Johnny Mathis, but hit the charts after travelling to Jamaica and finding reggae.

  Although Nash discovered Bob Marley and signed him to a record deal, Marley said, “Johnny Nash is not Rasta; and if you’re not a Rasta, you don’t know nothin’ about reggae.”

Conspiracy Theory: Followers of the conspiracy cult QAnon believe their removal from Facebook is proof of a conspiracy, they just can’t figure out exactly what. Some say on Twitter that it’s an indication that President Trump is about to crack down on satanic pedophiles, you know, like Hillary Clinton. They pinned their hopes on a press conference held by the Justice Department yesterday, but that, to their disappointment, turned out to be about arresting members of the Islamic State.

Alien: After President Trump’s odious policy adviser Stephen Miller contracted the coronavirus, the anti-Trump Lincoln Project announced that Covid-19 had jumped species.

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