THE FASCIST: Former White House Chief of Staff  John Kelly who also served as Donald Trump’s secretary of homeland security told the NY Times in a series of three interviews that Trump meets the definition of a fascist.

  Kelly said that Trump’s recent proposal to use the military against the “enemy within” is so dangerous that he felt he had to speak out. The Times online article includes audio clips of the interview.

  Kelly said, “Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy.” Kelly added, “So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”

  As a former Marine general Kelly is not endorsing a candidate for president. But he said that Trump “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government” and Trump “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted.”

  It’s a bad day in the press for Trump. Along those lines of authoritarianism, The Atlantic published an article saying that while he was President Trump bemoaned not having generals in the military who were loyal primarily to him. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” the article quotes Trump saying in a private conversation in The White House. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders,” The Atlantic reports according to two people who heard Trump say this.

  And then there’s the story of Trump offering to pay for the funeral of Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old Army private, murdered by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood in Texas. The Atlantic reports that when Trump was presented with the bill he became angry and blurted out, “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” The article says Trump turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: “Don’t pay it!” Later that day, he was still agitated, The Atlantic reports. “Can you believe it?” he said, according to a witness. “Fucking people, trying to rip me off.”

  Trump’s representatives deny all of the above and say these stories are just efforts to sway the election.

IT’S POLITICAL: Vice President Kamala Harris is out there trying to win the votes of “persuadable” Republicans on the bubble about who they want for president.

  The Washington Post reports that Harris averages about 6 percent of Republican votes in “high-quality polling,” a significant number similar to Joe Biden’s win four years ago. As many as 20 million Americans have already voted.

 A reversal of Republican Party warnings about the danger of early voting has succeeded in turning out a high percentage of Republicans despite Donald Trump’s repeated warnings that early voting was prone to fraud. Republican organizers this year have convinced party loyalists to show up and turn in ballots in states where early voting has begun.

  Four years ago Trump said with no evidence that early voting was a target for  “election interference by foreign countries.” At a rally in Michigan earlier this year, Trump called mail voting “totally corrupt”

  The counter message to vote early is coming from The Republican National Committee, which is co-chaired by the former president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump. Part of the new message is that early voting is actually a bolster against fraud.

RUDY OH RUDY: A Manhattan judge ordered Rudy Giuliani to surrender control of his New York penthouse to the two Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation lawsuit against the former New York mayor for falsely accusing them of helping to cheat Donald Trump out of the 2020 election.

   The apartment is valued at $6.5 million. Giuliani must also hand over cash, a 1980s Mercedes-Benz once owned by the actress Lauren Bacall, two dozen expensive watches, sports memorabilia, and other valuables.

  Giuliani asked the court to exempt one of the watches which had been given to him by his grandfather but the judge refused. US District Judge Lewis Liman said that, “The Court also does not doubt that certain of the items may have sentimental value to Defendant.” And he went on, “But that does not entitle Defendant to continued enjoyment of the assets to the detriment of the Plaintiffs to whom he owes approximately $150 million. It is, after all, the underlying policy of these New York statutes that ‘no man should be permitted to live at the same time in luxury and in debt.’”

OUT OF FASHION: Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries, his life partner and a third man were arrested yesterday in Florida on charges of luring men into drug-laced, and coercive sex parties around the world with the promise of becoming one of the retailer’s hunky models.

  Jeffries, 80, his partner Matthew Smith,61, and employee James Jacobson, 71, are accused of using Jeffries’ status and wealth with the help of household staff to satisfy their sexual fantasies over a period of 20 years in what amounted to an international sex trafficking and prostitution business, according to the federal indictment unsealed in New York.

THE SPIN RACK: A 15-year-old boy was taken into custody after  five people were found dead in a home near Seattle on Monday in what appears to be an incident of domestic violence. Two adults and three juveniles were killed in the shooting, according to the  King County Sheriff’s Office. One wounded teenager also was found. — McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers in Midwest and Western states have been linked to an E. coli outbreak leading to the death of one person and illness in 49 others. Most cases have been reported in Colorado and Nebraska.

BELOW THE FOLD: Barack Obama, the coolest president ever, rapped in Detroit yesterday with Eminem in support of Kamala Harris … “His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy …”

-30-