On Wednesday, Sports Authority floor salesman and notable Trump voter Paul Ryan claimed that he was the only person in the country who had made sense of James Comey’s decision to intrude into the election last Friday. “I understand why he did what he did,” he said on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. “Because imagine if he didn’t and we found out after the fact that he was sitting on this before the election. So I clearly understand why he did what he did.” Ryan also warned that Comey would have to release information immediately if the FBI uncovered a “smoking gun.”

“And she and Republicans are saying, if you’ve got something, you’ve got clear—put it out there,” he continued. “So yeah, I think if he’s gone through the process that he needs to go through to vet evidence and he’s got it, he should do it. I do agree with that. More disclosure is better, clearly.”

Ryan is signaling a lot here. For one thing, he’s flexing at Comey to try to get him to keep intruding—if he doesn’t, the subtext is that Ryan and House Republicans will pounce. But the greater significance here is that Ryan unwittingly provides the clearest rationale we have for why Comey decided to intrude in the first place. Ryan is basically saying that House Republicans would’ve gone ballistic if they found out about the Weiner emails after the election—in other words, Comey was probably trying to placate a Republican establishment with an aggressive appetite for amplifying pseudo-scandals.

If this is true, it is extremely troubling because it suggests that a radicalized GOP is dictating the FBI’s public statements. If Clinton is elected, this is a very bad precedent, since the appetite for scandals like this is only going to increase.

During an interview on the Tom Joyner Morning Show on Wednesday morning, President Barack Obama near scolded African-Americans for their low early-voter turnout. “I’m going to be honest with you right now ... but the African-American vote right now is not as solid as it needs to be,” he said, according to Politico.

With six days left until Election Day, Democrats and Obama are desperate to energize the black vote. Last week, the Clinton campaign released an ad called “Barbershop,” featuring black voters in barbershops and hair salons discussing why they are voting for Hillary. But Obama’s comments reflect a troubling truth about how politicians, both Democratic and Republican, have historically treated black voters.

In a poignant piece, The New York Times Magazine’s Nikole Hannah-Jones points out that, while liberals are quick to condemn Trump and the Republican Party’s rhetoric about black Americans, too often Democrats are guilty of employing a similar version of that rhetoric, particularly when it comes to responsibility politics and shaming black communities for their own woes. But black voters are stuck when it comes to options:

Since first securing the right to vote, black Americans have had to be single-issue voters — and that single issue is basic citizenship rights. Maintaining these rights will always and forever transcend any other issue. And so black Americans can never jump ship to a party they understand as trying to erode the hard-fought rights black citizens have died to secure.

This predicament has led to a complacency and lack of consideration for issues concerning black voters. When Obama evokes his legacy as a reason to vote (“If you really care about my presidency and what we’ve accomplished, then you are going to go and vote”), he fails to acknowledge his own shortcomings when it comes to improving the lives of black Americans. It conforms to the disappointing standard that fails to see black citizens as more than their votes.

Ever since Amazon opened its first physical bookstore a year ago, people have been speculating what the point was. Amazon, after all, has strived above all else to keep infrastructure costs down. Spending more on infrastructure spooks its investors, who are obsessed with growth (something Amazon does effortlessly) and profit (not so much).

One theory was that the physical stores would become shipping hubs for Amazon’s expanding mail empire. Another was that, despite Amazon’s small collection of titles, it was planning on finally digging Barnes & Noble’s grave. The stores also could be giant experimental labs to test various schemes, or showrooms for Amazon products, like the Echo and the Kindle, that encourage people to shop at Amazon.

All of those might still be true, but the evidence suggests that Amazon wants to use the bookstores to lock in more customers to Amazon Prime. Geekwire reports that Amazon bookstores are changing their pricing models. Before, prices in the store were the exact same as those online. Now, only Prime members get the online price—other customers pay full price.

Amazon has been more margin-focused in recent years, so one explanation may simply be that this is in keeping with a larger shift in the company’s strategy. Amazon’s books were often sold at such a steep discount (in order to increase market share) that the company made little money on them. And, as Geekwire points out, Prime members spend significantly more money at Amazon than non-Prime members.

Interestingly, this would be similar to the membership program that Barnes & Noble has had in place for years, where you pay a sum (currently $25) and receive a set discount on all books (currently 10 percent). And Geewkire notes that Costco and Safeway also have similar programs. But, as Sarah Weinman wrote on Twitter, Amazon has used these stores as testing grounds, so it’s very possible that Amazon will roll out a similar program online in the months to come. This means that non-Prime members will no longer get the discounts they have long been accustomed to.

It’s an interesting pilot program, and interesting pilot programs seem to be the Amazon bookstores’ purpose. They’re good at testing pricing schemes, even if they’re still pretty lousy bookstores.

Back in mid-October, after the Billy Bush tape unleashed a surge of leaks about Trump’s boorish behavior on the set of The Apprentice (as well as rumors that Trump was recorded saying the n-word) America turned its weary eyes to Burnett, whom it believed controlled access to the tapes. Burnett claimed that he had absolutely no power to release anything:

“MGM owns Mark Burnett’s production company and The Apprentice is one of its properties. Despite reports to the contrary, Mark Burnett does not have the ability or the right to release footage or other material from The Apprentice. Various contractual and legal requirement also restrict MGM’s ability to release such material.”

But Burnett, the Australian producer of Survivor and The Apprentice who was sent back in time to destroy America, has apparently spent the last few weeks sending signals to former Apprentice staffers that leaking to the press could result in serious professional and legal blowback. One Apprentice staffer told The Daily Beast, “They didn’t directly ‘threaten’ [legal action] … but the message was clear: Don’t talk to the media, don’t leak to reporters.”

It’s possible that Burnett is just trying to protect his own skin—that he believes that these leaks damage his ability to attract talent to his shows because they suggest that he doesn’t run a tight ship. But as I wrote this morning, the rule of this election has been that whichever candidate is receiving media attention is losing. By clamping down on leaks, Burnett is working to keep Trump out of the spotlight and therefore helping his chances of winning the election.

Aside from a short period after the Republican National Convention in July, Hillary Clinton has led Donald Trump for the entire election cycle. And for a few weeks in October, it looked like the election was over. Clinton won all three debates decisively, and when a clip of Trump bragging about committing sexual assault leaked days before the second debate, many assumed the race was over.

But the 2016 race began tightening after the third debate. James Comey’s announcement last Friday that the FBI was investigating (possibly) new emails relating to Clinton’s use of a private email server may not have hurt her electoral chances, but it certainly didn’t help them either. The rule in 2016 has been that whichever candidate is in the news is losing and Clinton has very much been in the news since Friday. With six days to the election, polls continue to tighten, both nationally and in key battleground states like North Carolina and Nevada.

Of course, Clinton’s path to the White House has been highly flexible for most of the election and it still is today. She can lose a handful of the states she’s currently leading by slim margins and still beat Trump. Trump, meanwhile, basically  has to shoot the moon to get there. Still, it’s very possible that Clinton will only eke out a victory, against one of the most toxic presidential candidates of all time.

Clinton’s camp has plenty to worry about, especially when it comes to enthusiasm: Black voter turnout is down and it’s possible that the suburban, Republican-leaning voters Clinton has targeted for the last four months may be turned off by the latest twist in the never-ending email saga. Is it time to panic for Clinton supporters? No. Well, maybe a little.

Weld is the vice-presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, but he’s often in the news praising Clinton. He’s made it clear that he views the prospect of a Trump presidency as a disaster, with the unspoken implication that voting for Clinton would be a wise choice. Speaking last night on Rachel Maddow’s show, Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, went even further, saying “there is nothing there” regarding Clinton’s ongoing e-mail scandal. He added, “I’m here vouching for Mrs. Clinton, and I think it’s high time somebody did. I’m doing it based on my personal experience with her, and I think that she deserves to have people vouch for her other than members of the Democratic National Committee.”

Weld’s words are likely to upset many Libertarians. Matt Welch, editor at large of Reason magazine, predicted as much last night, writing:

But expending valuable time and energy on defending his running-mate’s chief opponent one week before Election Day will likely be the final straw among Libertarians and libertarians who never trusted the former Massachusetts governor in the first place. He was supposed to bring media credibility, fundraising panache, and a path to 15 percent (let alone 5). But what he brought from his first main television appearance as an L.P. standard-bearer was the distinct impression, requiring constant walkback, that he was actively fond of his unlikable opponent, and in this race for himself. Plenty of libertarians wanted to wring his neck long before watching him smirk through sentences tonight such as, “I talk with Gary every other day; we’re on different coasts, usually. But we keep in touch.”

In the week since President Park Geun-hye apologized to the nation for sharing classified state information with her long-time confidant and friend, Choi Soon-sil, a steady stream of revelations has shown what appears to be Choi’s decades-long grip over the president’s life and decisions, from the trivial (what to wear) to the extremely consequential (cabinet appointments, North Korean policy). A weekend rally calling for the president’s ouster numbered in the tens of thousands and protesters promised a continuous vigil in the days to follow. Park’s mass firing of her closest aides on Sunday to counter the charges about Choi’s influence over her appointments did little to restore the public’s faith in her.  

After refusing for weeks to return to face the legal charges against her, Choi returned to Korea from Germany on Monday and was promptly detained by prosecutors. At a frenzied press conference, she admitted, “I committed a sin that deserves death.” Feelings were apparently running high, as a man tried to ram his construction vehicle through the gate of the prosecutor’s office to “help her die,” while another bystander threw a tub of excrement at her. 

Beyond the $70 million she may have extorted from South Korea’s major corporations to feed the two foundations that she is charged with using for her personal expenses, the heart of the scandal is focused on the extent to which she influenced key appointments and government decisions in the Park administration. The president’s reputation for secrecy, including an unwillingness to give press conferences or rely on any but a handful of close aides, only feeds the notion that Choi was the one pulling the strings behind the president the entire time (along with a secret group of advisers she called the “eight fairies”). 

This scandal eerily mirrors the downfall of Park’s father, former president and dictator Park Chung-hee, who was assassinated by his chief of intelligence in part because Choi’s father, the cult leader Choi Tae-min, wielded too much power over Park and his daughter. In any case, the controversy has also revealed unprecedented fault lines between the government and its traditional allies, including Park’s own party, the conservative media, and the prosecutor’s office, all of which have tended to shy away from any criticism of Park. While it is unclear whether the widespread calls for impeachment will lead to an actual unseating, all signs are pointing to Park’s remaining term as a stunningly unpopular lame-duck president.  

On Monday, Slate published an explosive story alleging that Trump Tower contained a secret server that was secretly sending secret messages to Russia’s largest bank. It was a “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” argument, using DNS logs and computer experts to make the case that Trump Tower and Alfa Bank were communicating, though no actual communication between the two entities was included. That story was quickly seized on by the Clinton campaign, which has argued for months that Trump and Vladimir Putin are in cahoots.

But on Tuesday afternoon, The Intercept poured cold water on Slate’s report, making the case that Trump Tower was sending spam, not top secret Manchurian Candidate code messages, to Alfa Bank. There is a very simple plausible explanation for the exchanges: Trump’s organization sends lots of spam promoting his hotels.

Could Trump and the Russian government be in communication? Sure! It’s definitely clear that a lot of people, both in the press and the Clinton campaign, want that to be true. But right now there’s simply no conclusive evidence that it is true.

The key to the 2016 race has always been the make-up of the electorate. Will it look like the 2012 electorate that re-elected Barack Obama, or the 2014 electorate that resulted in Republicans winning the Senate and expanding their hold on Congress?

So far, as Greg Sargent notes in The Washington Post, there is both good news and bad news for Democrats. The good news is that there has been a surge in Latino- and Asian-American voting, likely due to disgust at Donald Trump’s xenophobic campaign. The bad news is that African-American voting has been lagging, partially as a result of new barriers to voting in states like North Carolina, but also possibly indicating less enthusiasm for Clinton than Obama.

As Sargent further observes, there are signs that Democrats recognize that, in the closing lap of the race, the focus has to be on re-energizing black voters. “A barrage of political celebrities are coming to the [North Carolina] in the next few days,” Sargent notes. “A host of outreach efforts and events are in the works, to try to make that happen.”