NEWS AND OPINION:

“Noncitizens will vote in November. The only question is how many,” says the editorial board of Issues & Insights, a news and opinion site.

“Eight years ago, the mainstream media told us in no uncertain terms that noncitizens don’t vote in American elections. ’There is no evidence,’ they said. The likely number ’is zero.’ They were provably wrong then – there’d been multiple accounts of noncitizens who’d registered and voted in elections,” advises an editorial released by the site Wednesday.

“In the years since, the evidence of this problem has piled up higher. But the media are still at it. It’s ’extremely rare,’ they say. It never ’affects the outcome of a race.’ Republicans are looking to ’blame illegals’ if Donald Trump loses,” the editorial said.

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It cited examples of this voting pattern in Texas, Virginia, Nevada, Oregon and Ohio.

“Yet just this weekend, ABC News ran a piece titled: ’In South Texas, the myth of noncitizen voting takes center stage,’” the editorial noted.

“Keep in mind that the 2020 election was decided by a few thousand votes in some states – a small enough margin that illegal voters could make the difference. So why do the media bury their collective heads in the sand about this? We will give you one guess,” it later concluded.

Find the commentary at issuesinsights.com.

REAGAN GOES DIGITAL

Let’s revisit “Reagan” — a new movie based on the life and accomplishments of Ronald Reagan which was released on Aug. 30 and has since brought in $30 million at the box office, reached as high as fifth on the box office weekly top 10, and was recently screened before a bipartisan audience of 60 lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol.

There’s more news, however — this from ShowBiz Direct, a motion picture distribution company.

“After a successful theatrical run, ’Reagan’ is now available for digital download on all major digital retailer platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play and Vudu, among others,” the company said.

Interested? Find links to download the movie on Apple TV, Amazon, Fandango at Home, VUDU and Xfinity at Reagan.movie

GETTING OUT THE MESSAGE

The Congressional Leadership Fund — the super PAC endorsed by House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republican leadership — announced an additional $12 million in new ad reservations in key battleground House races.

These additions will run both to defend Republican seats and pick up Democratic ones, and bring the fund’s investment to over $202 million, as of Wednesday.

The fund is also investing an additional $1.5 million in video streaming messages targeting 14 cities.

“In the last three weeks of the election, we continue to add key final resources where they’ll have the biggest impact,” said fund president Dan Conston in a statement.

Here’s where the latest additions are going — and how much the cities are receiving: Los Angeles ($3.6 million); Harrisburg, Pennsylvania ($2.6 million); Raleigh, North Carolina ($1.2 million); Mail outreach ($600,000); Fresno, California ($525,000); Cedar Rapids, Iowa ($350,000); Des Moines, Iowa ($320,000); Sacramento, California ($250,000); Greenville, South Carolina ($250,000); Syracuse, New York ($250,000); Albany, New York ($225,000) and Binghamton, New York ($120,000).

BOLSTERING THE PRESS

Here’s some more funding news which will benefit an important but sometimes overlooked component of the news media empire. Small-town newspapers have gotten a bonus.

“Two hundred and five small local news outlets — including one in every U.S. state — will receive a share of $20 million to close persistent coverage gaps in their communities, thanks to funding from Press Forward, the nationwide movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news,” advises the aforementioned Press Forward in a news release.

This coalition of over 60 funders has committed to invest over $500 million to, according to its mission statement, “strengthen local newsrooms, close longstanding gaps in journalism coverage, advance public policy that expands access to local news, and scale infrastructure the sector needs to thrive.”

“Motivated by the extraordinary quality and number of proposals, Press Forward is funding twice as many news organizations as it anticipated initially through its first open call. The recipients, the majority receiving $100,000 in general operating support, were selected from a total of 931 proposals from newsrooms with annual budgets of less than $1 million,” the coalition said.

Curious? The roster of 60-plus funders includes the Ford Foundation, Knight Foundation, Scripps Howard Fund and the Miami Foundation. Find them at pressforward.news

FOXIFIED

The ratings victory continues.

During the week of Oct. 7-13, Fox News once again drew the largest audiences and led the cable news ratings during that period. The network averaged 2.5 million viewers during primetime hours and 1.6 million viewers throughout the day according to Nielsen. This marks the 40th consecutive week that the network denominated the competition.

Among the heavyweights: “The Five” averaged 3.6 million daily viewers while “Jesse Watters Primetime” delivered an audience of 3.3 million, “Hannity” attracted 2.8 million viewers and “The Ingraham Angle” drew 2.7 million.

Meanwhile, late-night favorite “Gutfeld!” averaged 2.9 million viewers during the week — and continues to outrank the network competition. Host Greg Gutfeld — along with regulars Kat Timpf, Tyrus and special guests — bested ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” with an audience of 1.8 million, NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” (1.2 million), “Late Night with Seth Meyers” (865,000), HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” (668,000) and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” (521,000).

On Saturday, “The Big Weekend Show” was the most-watched show of the day with 1.4 million viewers, while “Sunday Morning Futures” enjoyed an audience of 1.8 million.

POLL DU JOUR

• 85% of U.S. adults favor eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits.

• 71% favor providing a $6,000 tax credit to middle-class and low-income families with newborn children.

• 65% favor limiting the amount of profit that food companies can make on groceries.

• 61% favor providing up to $25,000 in grants to first-time home buyers.

• 57% favor raising import taxes on goods imported from other countries.

• 41% favor reducing corporate income taxes.

SOURCE: An ABC News/Ipsos poll of 2,631 U.S. adults conducted Oct. 4-8 and released Sunday.

• Follow Jennifer Harper on X @HarperBulletin, on Facebook @HarperUniverse.