USA Today reports: In an apparent move to embarrass the United States over Donald Trump’s claims of a “rigged” presidential election, Russia sought to send monitors to U.S. polling stations for the Nov. 8 vote, Russian media revealed Thursday. The bid was sharply rebuffed by the State Department, and one state election official threatened criminal action if Russian monitors showed …

The Sun reports: There was widespread anger in the House of Commons as the Government talked out the Turing bill, which would automatically pardon gay men convicted of now abolished sexual offences. MPs shouted ‘shame’ and ‘shameful’ as Justice Minister Sam Gyimah killed off SNP MP John Nicolson’s private members bill. The Government has announced plans for thousands of gay …

The Week reports: Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele just can’t stomach voting for either major-party presidential candidate. “I was damn near puking during the debates,” Steele said Thursday at a dinner in San Francisco in honor of the 40th anniversary of Mother Jones. Steele, who led the RNC from 2009 to 2011 as the first black GOP chairman, …

But they give no admission that Trump’s trolls did the same thing to recent click-polls on many mainstream sites. Via Breitbart: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has overtaken Hillary Clinton on a Breitbart debate poll, despite a stream of overseas Clinton bots skewing the results in favour of the Democratic nominee. The original results of the poll were gleefully reported …

Just in from the Human Rights Campaign: “Time and again Hillary Clinton has demonstrated through her words and actions that she is committed to fighting for full LGBTQ equality,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “All of the progress we’ve achieved is at stake in this election. While Donald Trump continues his hate-filled campaign and threatens to drag us backwards, Hillary …

Via Mediaite: Carl Bernstein made an appearance on CNN this morning, and he opined that Donald Trump‘s refusal to say whether or not he’d accept the results of the election are an ominous sign of what’s to come after November 8. A great deal of conversation still surrounds Trump’s debate remarks, as well as the psyche-out he offered while addressing …

At this writing many major sites are unreachable in much of the eastern United States. Gizmodo has the story: Twitter, Spotify and Reddit, and a huge swath of other websites were down or screwed up this morning. This was happening as hackers unleashed a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the servers of Dyn, a major DNS host. …

Politico reports: An overwhelming majority of voters — 68 percent — think the loser of the 2016 presidential election should accept the results of the race, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted after the final presidential debate. Just 14 percent of voters said they thought the loser should challenge the results, as Donald Trump continues to decline to …

Via Breitbart: Build The Wall: The Game, an iPhone game created by pro-Trump internet personality Baked Alaska, has been rejected from the Apple App Store for including a cameo by Pepe the Frog. “I had a free game coming out on iOS today for y’all, but Apple has banned it’s release due to a cartoon picture of Pepe The Frog …

Last week Brooklyn’s Gregory Brothers brought us Joseph Gordon-Levitt, today we get Weird Al: If the Al Smith Dinner tonight left you craving better political humor, the popular songifiers over at schmoyoho installed Weird Al Yankovic as the moderator of the third and final Clinton-Trump debate remix. And clearly Chris Wallace missed an opportunity to surround himself with men in …

ABC News reports: Donald Trump was booed Thursday night at the annual Alfred E. Smith Dinner after delivering a series of jabs at his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, including trying to riff on a controversial remark he made at the latest presidential debate about her being a “nasty woman.” Clinton also didn’t play nice, however her jokes appeared to be …

From the editorial board of the New York Daily News: When deliberating over a presidential endorsement, the Daily News Editorial Board strives to identify the person who offers the greatest promise to brighten the futures of Americans and to safeguard the national security. Never have we questioned a candidate’s fitness to serve. Then came Donald Trump — liar, thief, bully, …

Politico reports: Jim Murphy, Donald Trump’s national political director, is no longer playing an active role on the campaign, according to three sources briefed on the move. “I have not resigned but for personal reasons have had to take a step back from the campaign,” Murphy said in a statement to POLITICO. Since joining the Trump campaign in June, Murphy, …

Powerful. Via press release: This evening the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, the nation’s largest grassroots anti-Trump organization, released a powerful ad attacking Donald Trump for refusing to say he’d accept the results of the election. The organization, well known for its rapid-response operation, began making the ad just minutes after Trump said he wouldn’t commit to concede if he loses. …

GLAAD reports: With a sea of staffers dressed in purple on the steps of the Old Executive Office Building in Washington DC on Thursday, The White House voiced its strong support for LGBTQ youth and took a powerful stand against bullying. But the White House team was just one of many among elected and public officials speaking out. Take a …

Politico reports: Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake has maintained for months that Republicans should take up Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination if it looks like the presidential contest is a lost cause for the GOP. It’s looking about that time, Flake said in an interview on Thursday. “I said if we were in a position like we were in in …

Brian Tashman reports at Right Wing Watch: Yesterday, Alex Jones repeated his claim that Hillary Clinton is literally demonic, this time while speaking with longtime anti-Clinton crusader Larry Nichols. Nichols said Clinton had attended “a witches’ church” in Los Angeles “every four to six weeks” while she lived in Arkansas and “is pure, deep, evil, mean, meaner than anything you’d …

The Ali Forney Center, NYC’s beloved and overburdened homeless shelter for LGBT youth, holds their annual gala tomorrow night at Capitale in lower Manhattan with Sandra Bernhard hosting. This year’s honorees include NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Council Member Rosie Mendez, and actor Matthew Saks, who will deliver a tribute to one of AFC’s most famous benefactors, his mother, gay …

Last month the office of British Prime Minister Teresa May signaled that this would happen but gave no timeline. Today we get confirmation. The Guardian reports: Gay and bisexual men convicted of now-abolished sexual offences in England and Wales are to receive posthumous pardons, the government has announced. Thousands of living men convicted over consensual same-sex relationships will also be …

From the statement issued today by Sen. John McCain: “All Arizonans and all Americans should be confident in the integrity of our elections. Free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power are the pride of our country, and the envy of much of the world because they are the means to protecting our most cherished values, the right …