News of the Week for Oct. 25^th, 2020

• Supreme Court Vacancy
• Riots & Revolution
• Corona Virus
• Election 2020
• Gun Rights
• Hide the Decline
• Obamacare
• War & Terror
• National News
• Economy & Taxes
• International News
• Opinion

 

Supreme Court Vacancy

 

Senate Republicans offer constitutional amendment to block Supreme Court packing
Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and five other Senate Republicans have introduced a constitutional amendment to prevent Democrats from packing the Supreme Court if Joe Biden wins the White House and Democrats capture the Senate.

Opposition to Packing the Court Coming From More Moderate Democrats
As it turns out, it’s not going to be easy for the radical Democrats to pack the court with Constitution-destroying liberals. There are several less loony Democratic senators who are cool to the idea and some are downright opposed.

Triggered Gay Couples Move Up Their Weddings Fearing Amy Coney Barrett
Many gay and lesbian couples who are legally married or considering getting legally married are freaking out, fearing that President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett may doom their marriages. Some are even rushing their legal marriages in order to get them in before Barrett can strike them down. These fears are largely irrational, however.

Senate Will Vote on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court Confirmation on Monday
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the Senate will vote next Monday, October 26, to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Biden: I’ll Have a Commission Study Reforming the Court
Three thoughts in response to his CBS comments

Sheldon Whitehouse Again Abuses the Judicial Confirmation Process
At Vanity Fair, Bess Levin pretends that she believes that Amy Coney Barrett is in favor of executing women who get abortions.

Lisa Murkowski Will Vote “Yes” on the Confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett
Alaska GOP senator Lisa Murkowski, who announced immediately after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that she opposed holding a vote on a Supreme Court nominee before the election, said on Saturday she nevertheless will vote “yes” on the final vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett.

 

Riots & Revolution

 

Not a Joke: Los Angeles Actually Votes To Form ‘Unarmed Response’ Teams To Answer 911 Calls
The Los Angeles City Council has unanimously voted to created a pilot program to send “unarmed response” teams to nonviolent calls which are currently handled by the city’s police department.

The Brownshirts Are Back
Some American cities, like Portland, Seattle and San Francisco, are starting to look like Germany in the 1930s. Yesterday a free speech rally was held in downtown San Francisco. Those marching for free speech were attacked by fascists from Antifa. Zero Hedge has collected photos and videos.

College asks staff to submit “anti-racist” goals
Employees from Edmonds College’s Pre-College division were asked to create at least one “anti-racist” goal to be submitted to their superiors.

University told student groups not to gather, but allowed Black Lives Matter protest
Also said random COVID tests violate Fourth Amendment

Insanity Wrap #71: (Literally) Demonic BLM/Antifa Wants to Kneecap Trump Voters (Literally)
Insanity Wrap needs to know: What does it take to kill the phony Russian Collusion narrative? Answer: Seriously. This thing has more lives than Dracula, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Micheal Meyers, combined.

Wikipedia bans users from expressing support of traditional marriage
Volunteer writers and editors for Wikipedia can no longer express opposition to same-sex marriage on their profiles, a decision made after some editors said the stance was “discriminatory” and against site policy.

SPLC: Hate Isn’t Hate if You Hate Whites
A key purpose of the Southern Poverty Law Center is to designate dissident organizations as “hate groups” so they can be crippled if not destroyed through denial of service, boycotts, social media campaigns, et cetera. One of the most jarring ironies enabled by the liberal establishment’s lack of self-awareness is that the SPLC is itself a hate group.

University of Chicago faculty demand reparations
A letter published by a coalition of University of Chicago faculty demands a $2 million budget, Critical Race Theory Department, defunding of police, and reparations committee.

Student sues school after losing job over anti-BLM tweet
Campus Reform sat down with Rae’Lee Klein, the Cronkite School of Journalism student who was ousted from her role at the school’s radio station for presenting an unpopular viewpoint.

BLM’s Marxist Co-Founders Sign On To Reap The Rewards Of Capitalism
The three women co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement have all signed on with creative talent representation agencies. They are all self-avowed “trained Marxists” and now they are ready to cash in on capitalism. It doesn’t get much more 2020 than this, does it? This is worthy of a *chef’s kiss*.

State lawmakers pass bill to reduce traffic stops, outlaw certain marijuana searches
A bill that proponents contend will reduce police targeting of Black drivers with unwarranted traffic stops and vehicle searches has passed the General Assembly and is on the way to the governor for consideration.

Student newspaper publishes instructions on how to make a Molotov cocktail
The editor-in-chief of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student newspaper wrote an op-ed going over the history of the Molotov cocktail and posted instructions on how to make one.

BLM Activist Faces Hate Crime Charges for Knocking Out the Teeth of a Black Conservative
On Saturday, a Black Lives Matter mob targeted a free speech rally against Big Tech in San Francisco. An assailant socked the free speech rally organizer, 25-year-old black conservative Philip Anderson, in the jaw, knocking out his two front teeth. On Sunday, the San Francisco Police Department arrested a suspect, 35-year-old Androa “Dro” Anderson, charging him with mayhem and a hate crime enhancement.

Think tank counters Critical Race Theory with ‘liberty and justice for all’ message
A nonpartisan think tank is responding to universities promoting critical race theory by creating reading lists.

CAREN Act: San Francisco officials vote unanimously to ban racially-motivated 911 calls
San Francisco supervisors unanimously voted on Tuesday to pass the Caution Against Racially and Exploitative Non-Emergencies (CAREN) Act that makes racially-motivated phone calls to 911 illegal.

“The End Goal Is The Abolishment of Capitalism”
BLM/Antifa/Leftist activists say what they really want.

What Kenosha Looks Like After Riots and Looting
In just 48 hours, over 40 businesses in the quiet city of Kenosha, Wisconsin were ravaged by violence, according to the Kenosha Area Business Alliance. Rioters looted and torched shops on the nights of Aug. 23 and 24. The Daily Signal traveled there to see what it looked like.

Antifa Repeatedly Threatens Andy Ngo’s Life. What Are the Portland Police Doing About It?
On Thursday, the Post Millennial Editor-at-Large Andy Ngo and author Douglas Murray posed in front of a large graffiti death threat in Portland reading, “Kill Andy Ngo.” Ngo claimed he has reported many death threats to the Portland Police Bureau, but the police have yet to follow up with him on these threats.

Seattle LGBTQ Commission Wants Their Lesbian Mayor To Resign
Sometimes you just can’t win for losing, or so it seems. LGBT activists widely hailed the 2016 election of Jenny Durkan as the next mayor of Seattle as a significant moment as she was only the second openly gay candidate to take the office and the first woman to do so in nearly a century. But things haven’t been running exactly smoothly in Seattle since the riots began and not everyone is happy with her now. That’s understandable, considering the chaos and unrest in the streets that she’s supposed to be keeping safe, but I’m guessing that not many people expected Seattle’s LGBTQ Commission to chime in and call for her to step down. And yet that’s precisely what happened this week.

Maryland Looks At Ditching Police Officers’ Bill Of Rights
Maryland is moving ahead with their own version of “police reform” in preparation for the return of the legislature in January. While some of the measures under consideration will sound familiar and similar to steps being taken in other parts of the country, one of the steps recently endorsed by a legislative working group is a bit more blunt, to put it mildly. Maryland has long had a “bill of rights” for police officers (Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, or LEOBR), similar to many other states. But the working group wants the state assembly to scrap it entirely.

“Trained Marxist” and BLM Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors Signs Warner Bros. TV Deal
“the pact will see Cullors develop and produce original programming across all platforms, including broadcast, cable and streaming”

 

Corona Virus

 

California won’t allow virus vaccines without state approval
California won’t allow any distribution of coronavirus vaccines in the nation’s most populous state until it is reviewed by the state’s own panel of experts, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday.

Oregon sued for banning religious schools while letting public schools reopen in person
No public health benefit – just fear of “mass exodus” from public schools

The State of the Unions
When the European Union reopened its borders to non-members on July 1, the United States found itself on the list of countries excluded from the lifting of travel restrictions. Due to its failure to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, the U.S. didn’t meet the criteria applied by the bloc’s member states, which also keep travelers from Russia and Brazil, among others, from entering the EU. The Commission had advised member states to keep restrictions in place “for countries whose situation is worse than in the EU,” a criterium the U.S. met at the moment.

Birth rates will drop, people will stay single for longer and women will sexualise themselves more: Scientists predict how society will change in a post-COVID world
A multidisciplinary team of experts reviewed 90 studies to make their forecasts

School Threatens 12-Year-Old With Arrest for Allegedly Missing 90 Minutes of Zoom Class
“Who in their right mind could do that?”

Lockdown Fears Loom Large as Coronavirus Second Wave Grips Europe
Gemany’s Merkel: “The pandemic is spreading rapidly again, even faster than at the start of it more than half a year ago.”

 

Election 2020

 

Early Voting Is the Devil and Has Completely Corrupted the Election Process
In this most annoying of election seasons, I am being inundated with requests to do something that I would never do: vote early. There are ads everywhere. It seems that every site I visit is imploring me to vote early in some visually offensive font and color combination. I’ve been trying to watch sports on television again and the ads are there too. I’m waiting for my cat to walk across my living room with “VOTE EARLY” shaved on his side.

Report: Trump Campaign Thinks Chances Of Winning North Carolina Have “All But Evaporated”
I call BS, as there’s hardly anything in the public polling data to support this. In fact, North Carolina was named last week by Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon as one of two states where the race is much closer than national polling would have you believe. (Arizona was the other.) Team Joe sees a three-point lead in NC, which almost exactly matches the public polls. Four years ago, Trump performed nearly three points better in North Carolina on Election Day than the polls expected.

Don’t Send Unsolicited Ballots If You Can’t Avoid Sending Them to Dead People
Trump has a line he’s been using about the dangers of mail-in voting: The problem isn’t absentee ballots that voters request specifically; the problem is in the nine states (plus D.C.) sending “unsolicited” ballots to all registered voters.

How Trump Might Be Winning
I’m far too dumb to be able to shed any light on polls, but I do know something about celebrity and I think I can guarantee this: If President Trump wins re-election, Robert Cahaly is going to become very famous very quickly.

Is Trump Really Only a Few Percentage Points Away from 270 Electoral Votes?
Assume, for a moment, that Trafalgar’s Robert Cahaly is correct that pollsters are still missing groups of Trump voters, because passionate Trump foes are the kind of people who are most eager to talk about the phone about politics for 20 to 30 minutes.

Scott Rasmussen: The data suggests that the group that’s responsible for Biden’s lead is … Never Trumpers
If this is borne out on Election Day, with a decisive crossover vote for Biden, what’ll we call it? It’d have to be “Romney’s revenge,” right?

A One-Point Race in Some Key Battlegrounds?
Further to the points made by David and Jim below, a new spate of polls shows one-point margins in a couple crucial states. The polls have Trump up by one or tied in Georgia, and Biden up by one in Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida. I talked to Robert Cahaly of Trafalgar over the weekend, and you don’t have to buy the strong version of his theory to believe, as I do, that if a poll has Trump down one point in a state he has a very good chance of winning it. These latest polls, if accurate, suggest that Trump’s narrow path to another upset win is plausible. The campaign has always been focused on Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona, and then Michigan or Pennsylvania to get over the top (assuming it doesn’t give back Iowa, Ohio, or Texas, of course). He could easily win those first four states, although Michigan or Pennsylvania still look like a reach at the moment.

Third Party Down
We’ve all heard less about third-party options this year than we did in 2016, because there’s less demand for them on the right and the left. Conservatives who wondered whether Trump would be a reliable ally on issues such as taxes, abortion, and judges back then have had those doubts quelled; many have made their peace with what used to bother them about him. (The Libertarians that year also put up a ticket with more conventional qualifications than usual, and have reverted to form this year.) Liberals are often dissatisfied and complacent in the eighth year of a Democratic presidency, and then get shaken out of those attitudes by Republican presidents. Ralph Nader did a lot worse in 2004 than in 2000 for that reason.

Frank Luntz: Trump’s Campaign Is The Worst I’ve Ever Seen
The temptation here is to say, “We’ll see what voters think about that on November 3.” If Trump’s all-base-all-the-time strategy succeeds in bringing out Fox viewers and talk-radio fans and assorted other working-class whites in numbers that obliterate Biden’s polling advantage, he’ll seem crazy like a fox. In an instant, the conventional wisdom will shift from “What the hell is this guy doing?” to “I can’t believe we underestimated this guy again. He understands the electorate better than anyone else.”

Nation braces for election violence, “guns, batons, Molotov cocktails”
More than one-third of the nation is expecting the election in two weeks to create “anarchy and chaos” resulting in potentially lethal violence.

Why Trump Is Losing White Suburban Women
However, white suburban Republican women were less likely to score high on the question we used to measure gender resentment, about whether women who complain of harassment often cause more problems than they solve. This signals that, compared with white men, they may be less receptive to Trump’s rhetoric concerning women this time around. And that could be a big problem for Trump since sexist attitudes strongly correlated with support for him in 2016.

Sen. Lindsey Graham Wants an Investigation Into ActBlue’s Sources of Cash
If the Democrats take the Senate this year, it will be due in no small part to the fundraising legerdemain of the left-wing money group ActBlue.

Biden Inching Ahead In Iowa? Update: By Three?
Iowa polls are worth extra attention over the final 13 days because of how easily Trump won there four years ago. The state went blue for Obama by nearly six points in 2012 but in 2016 Trump crushed it, winning by nearly 10. If there’s to be a late trend nationally back towards him in the final stage of the race, we’d expect to see it start showing up in a state that broke strongly for him before. All Trump voters there need to do is come home.

Great News! We Have 1.8 Million “Extra” Voters
Some states do better than others when it comes to voter registration and participation, with the ideal goal being to eventually get every eligible voter to take part. But what if you could manage to have more than 100% voter registration? Wouldn’t that be even better? This is no longer just a pipe dream. According to a new study conducted by Judicial Watch, 350 counties in eight U.S. states have more registered voters than there are people living there according to the most recent census numbers. And we’re not just talking about a handful of people over the limit. The grand total adds up to enough votes to swing any number of congressional races.

Biden calls for an overhaul of 401(k) tax breaks. What it means for you
Currently, contributions you make to your traditional 401(k) plan at work are made with pretax dollars. They reduce your taxable income and trim your tax liability.

County lowers “confidence level” for ballot signatures
The Clark County Election Department lowered the factory settings on its signature verification machine. So much for matching signatures as an impenetrable guard against election fraud.

Democrat Activists Preparing Massive Disruptions After Election if Biden Loses
“Trump has shown that he will stop at nothing to maintain his grip on power. Trump will not leave office without mass mobilization and direct action”

Trump campaign, Nevada GOP threaten to sue Clark County over attempts to “obstruct” election observation
The campaign and state Republicans claim that observers have been banned from certain areas where ballots are handled

Who Are the Last Swing Voters in This Election?
On the menu today: a deep look at Latinos, who might be the last of the swing voters in our heavily polarized political environment; Joe Biden wants a blue-ribbon commission to give him recommendations about the federal judiciary; a pretender and a contender for the title of Great Southern Democratic Hope; and a note of thanks.

Report: Kamala Harris Implicated In Hunter Biden China Deal
The list also included Schumer, Gov. Cuomo, and Mayor de Blasio.

Courts Give GOP Two Important Ballot Integrity Wins
Challenging Democratic ballot rule changes in the courts has been a hit-or-miss proposition. You win some, you lose some, but you hope that by the end of the day most of the more egregious efforts by Democrats to make it “easier” to vote fail the legal test.

Could The GOP Pick Up A Senate Seat In MN?
Republicans face a tough electoral cycle this year in their fight to retain control of the Senate. They have to defend far more seats than Democrats do, and even previously red states like Arizona and Georgia appear to be slipping away. They can only afford to lose three seats, and that’s if Donald Trump wins re-election and Mike Pence can cast a tie-breaking vote. Otherwise, Mitch McConnell will have to limit his losses to two in order to keep control of the upper chamber in a Joe Biden administration.

NPR Managing Editor: We’d Report On Hunter’s E-Mails, But We Don’t Want To Bother You, Or Something
Old and busted: Reporting without fear or favor. New hotness: Ignoring stories involving corruption at the highest levels of government as a “waste of time.” This rationalization from NPR is taking a well-deserved beating today on social media, attempting to explain away why they haven’t even covered the Hunter Biden e-mail story — even though the Bidens still haven’t actually denied their authenticity.

The Last Presidential Debate, Please
Let’s scrap the way we stage these meaningless contests.

Bernie Bro with Van Full of Guns and Explosives Plotted to Assassinate Biden. Media Buries the Lede, as Usual
Most of the time, the media doesn’t outright lie to you. Yeah, every once in a while they’ll blurt out a huge whopper (“Russian collusion”), but usually it’s more subtle than that. They’ll give you the facts, but they’ll emphasize some facts over others to preserve the narrative they’re selling. They’ll lie by omission. They’ll distract you with trivia while the real story slips by you unnoticed.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court – Absentee and mail-in ballots don’t need matching signatures (or valid postmarks)
And they can be counted if received three days after election day. What possibly could go wrong if the race margin is razor thin?

Democrat Senate Nominee Mark Kelly Denies Report Claiming He Dressed As Nazi Adolf Hitler
Late Friday evening, after an article was published that included photos claimed by the author to be of Arizona Democrat Senate nominee Mark Kelly dressed as Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Kelly’s campaign released a statement denying that the photos were of him.

Leading Gun Control Group Misses 2020 Spending Target… By More Than Half
At the beginning of the year, Michael Bloomberg’s gun-grabbing group, Everytown for Gun Safety, pledged to spend $60 million in 2020 to ensure their agenda was front and center for the Democrats during this election cycle. They recently filed their third-quarter financial report and the reality of the group’s activities is falling significantly short of their expectations. And by significantly short, I mean well below half. They’ve spent a bit more than $25 million for the entire year thus far and they have less than $5 million cash-on-hand. Their large media buys have all but evaporated and substantive financial support from the public has tanked.

Beverly Hills To Shut Down Rodeo Drive On Election Day Over Fears Of… What?
On Thursday, the Beverly Hills Police Department made an announcement during a meeting of the city’s Chamber of Commerce. On November 3rd, election day, the cops will be shutting down Rodeo Drive, one of the swankiest and most expensive shopping districts in the country, to all traffic. That means both vehicular traffic and pedestrians. They’ll be using concrete barricades and manning the barriers with officers in riot gear.

If Trump Is Reelected, Oregon Could Be Headed For A Crack-Up
Several right-wing groups are gathering signatures from residents of 15 Eastern Oregon counties that have had enough of this coastal insanity. They want either to become part of Idaho or form a new state with rural counties of Northern California. Well before Portland became the fashionable place for woke young retirees, Oregon was a reliably red state. Richard Nixon carried it in 1960, 1968 and 1972. Gerald Ford held it in 1976, and Ronald Reagan won by large margins in 1980 and 1984. In 1992 third-party candidate Ross Perot won 24% of the vote, almost certainly stealing Oregon for Democrat Bill Clinton.

Battle for the Senate Too Close to Call
These last 10 days before the election will be a blur of frantic activity by candidates. Donald Trump and Joe Biden will race around the country and — if one of them doesn’t call a “lid” on campaigning for the day — they are likely to hit 3 or 4 states in a single day.

 

Gun Rights

 

The State’s Monopoly of Force and the Right to Bear Arms
In debates over the Second Amendment, the conventional view is that the government ought to possess a monopoly of legitimate force, subject to the right of individuals to act in emergency self-defense. Many treat the non-defensive circumstances in which our system decentralizes force as holdovers from days of nonprofessional police and soldiers. When it comes to the Second Amendment, many believe that the only legitimate reason individuals may bear arms today is for individual self-defense against isolated criminal violence (e.g., an occupied home invasion).

Stanford students use “Act of Intolerance” policy against College Republicans
Stanford students reported the Stanford College Republicans’ Second Amendment event as an “Act of Intolerance.”

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Kirk Sorensen Updates His Molten Salt Reactor Company
Kirk Sorensen has been a leader in promoting thorium energy, molten salt nuclear reactors and the liquid fluoride thorium reactor. Kirk formed the company Flibe Energy back in 2011. Nextbigfuture spoke with Kirk frequently when Kirk blogged at Energy from Thorium.

Outrage over the Obvious: Trump’s Swipe at India’s Air Quality
Donald Trump didn’t call them “sh-thole” countries — but to the outrage-prone ear, he came close.

Biden Declares He Would “Transition” America Away from Oil Industry during Debate
President Trump and rival Joe Biden sparred over environmental policy at the end of the presidential debate on Thursday, with Biden indicating he would “transition” away from dependence on oil.

PG&E may cut power to over 1 million people in California
Pacific Gas & Electric may cut power to over 1 million people on Sunday to prevent the chance of sparking wildfires as extreme fire weather returns to the region, the utility announced Friday.

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Students want Medicare for All…but reluctant to donate their own money
Campus Reform recently asked students at Virginia Tech if they support Medicare for All.

Suicide by Starvation and Expanded Assisted Suicide Promoted in New England Journal of Medicine
The New England Journal of Medicine is a progressive menace when it comes to policy and cultural issues.

Bidencare vs. Private Health Insurance
Last night, Biden said, “Not one single person with private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan, nor did they under Obamacare.” The second part of that sentence is flatly false. While neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times included it in their fact-checking round-ups about the debate, in 2013 and 2014 the media provided extensive coverage of how Obamacare was causing millions of plan cancellations.

 

War & Terror

 

China warns it may detain US citizens over scholar probes
Chinese officials warned their U.S. counterparts as early as the summer that they may detain Americans in China if the U.S. doesn’t stop prosecuting Chinese academics, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Check Out How Rusty And Battered USS Stout Looks After Spending A Record 215 Days At Sea
Stout’s sailors went from March to October without setting foot on land and performed maintenance usually done in port while at sea.

After Beheading Of French Teacher, Mass Rallies And Police Raids Of Suspected Radicals
Last Friday a French teacher named Samuel Paty was beheaded in the street by an 18-year-old Islamic radical who was subsequently shot and killed by police. Authorities believe Paty was murdered because he had showed his class the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of Muhammad as part of a lesson on free expression. Sunday there were mass demonstrations across France in support of the teacher and the values he represented

China is practicing unleashing swarms of suicide drones packed with explosives from the backs of trucks
A Chinese defense contractor recently test-launched a swarm of loitering munitions from a light tactical vehicle, and there’s a video of the system in action.

Chinese “Diplomats” Beat Up A Taiwanese Official And Put Him In The Hospital
The island nation of Fiji lies off the east coast of Australia nearly 5,000 miles from China and Taiwan. Earlier this month a beach resort in Fiji’s capital of Suva became the scene of a fistfight between two “diplomats” from China and Taiwanese officials.

Winter is Coming and Both India and China are Preparing for War
Chinese and Indian winter warfare equipment is moving to the front.

Navy Plans Hammerhead Mines To Box In Chinese, Russian Subs
The Hammerhead mine would be delivered to sites by underwater drones, and “detect, classify, and defeat” manned or unmanned submarines, the Navy says.

France: Police Arrest Pro-Hamas Muslim Leader Behind Fatwa on Beheaded School Teacher
The suspect, a known “anti-Islamophobia” campaigner, reportedly created “one of the videos in which the father of a girl in the school accused the teacher, Samuel Paty, of having insulted Islam.”

Trump administration advances $1.8B arms sales to Taiwan
The Trump administration has approved selling Taiwan $1.8 billion in weapons, including air-to-ground missiles, according to notices to Congress on Wednesday.

China Shows the Weakness of Strong-Arm Diplomacy
Beijing needs to be deterred, but the Chinese threat is also much weaker than some Americans think.

South China Sea: The U.S. Navy Is Back (with an Aircraft Carrier)
Washington has taken a hard line on China’s expansion in the South China Sea, and in July denounced Beijing’s “illegal” claims, and backed a 2016 international tribunal that ruled that most of the claims have no legal basis. For its part, Beijing has vowed to ignore the verdict.

 

National

 

San Diego Unified School District Changes Grading System to “Combat Racism”
The San Diego Unified School District is overhauling the way it grades students

Doctors seeking approval to transplant dead man’s sex organs onto trans-identified woman
Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston are seeking approval to perform a first-of-its-kind surgery to attach the penis of a dead man onto a woman who identifies as transgender.

S.F. Bay area sports teams support racial discrimination
California’s constitution provides

The Case Of The Chinese “Mystery Seeds” Is Pretty Much Solved
You probably remember that back during the summer we were wrestling with something of a mystery. People all over the country were suddenly receiving packages of mysterious, unlabeled seeds in the mail, most appearing to have come from China. Initially, nobody knew where they came from or what sorts of plants they might germinate. Concerns were raised as to whether the seeds represented some sort of invasive species that could wreak havoc on American agriculture, along with plant and animal life in general. Despite warnings from the Department of Agriculture to not mess around with them, one farmer eventually planted some but it only produced Asian squash that was already being grown here anyway. And yet, the packets contained a wide variety of types of seeds, so that didn’t answer all of the questions.

New Yorker suspends CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin after he masturbated during Zoom call
“I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video”

NASA awards contracts for lunar technologies and ice prospecting payload
NASA has awarded more than $400 million in contracts to both demonstrate technologies needed for future lunar exploration and to send an ice-drilling payload to the south pole of the moon.

Dragonlance Authors File Suit Against Wizards of the Coast
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, authors and creators of Dragonlance, have filed suit against Wizards of the Coast for breach of contract.

University of Michigan to spend $260,000 for “combating racism” projects
Only one professor provided insight on the funding

Exclusive: Mayor of Los Angeles Repeatedly Witnessed Top Adviser’s Alleged Sexual Misconduct
This summer, a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department filed a lawsuit against the city. Officer Matthew Garza, who had served on the security detail that protects Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, alleged that one of Garcetti’s top aides, Rick Jacobs, routinely assaulted and harassed him—and that Garcetti had witnessed the assault and harassment and did nothing to stop it, nor hold Jacobs accountable.

Governor orders investigation into racism at Virginia Military Institute
Gov. Ralph Northam (D) ordered an investigation into allegations of “structural racism” at Virginia Military Institute (VMI).

Seven Nations Join U.S. in Signing “Artemis Accords” for Moon Missions
A new report supports NASA exploration efforts in response to China’s space program.

Chadwick Moore Exposes How Corporate America and Gay Inc. ‘Weaponize the Rainbow’
Journalist Chadwick Moore wrote a straightforward profile of conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos for Out magazine in the fall of 2016. The profile was not particularly complimentary and came with a trigger warning. Yet the backlash was directed at Moore personally, and he lost friends and standing in the gay community. The reactions of people he had known for years, and his local community’s rejection, caused him to reevaluate where he fit in.

DOJ, Eleven State Attorneys General File Civil Antitrust Lawsuit Against Monopolist Google”
Google has said in the past that it dominates in searches because it has “a product that billions of people choose to use each day.”

UW-Madison study finds bias, discriminatory behaviors NOT widespread on campus
“Like many other universities, the University of Wisconsin–Madison regularly communicates the idea that bias is widespread and that most members of the campus community engage in discriminatory behaviors. This message is inconsistent with the findings reported in this article.”

Liberals Confirm They Hate the Constitution
Forget court-packing, abolishing the electoral college, or adding Puerto Rico and DC as states to provide more Democrats in the Senate (which they’d like to abolish in any case if they could): their real target is the Constitution itself. Apparently it isn’t “living” enough for the left, so they want to kill it completely.

California Looks To Replicate New York’s Disastrous “Bail Reform” Law
This seems like an odd time to be having this conversation so soon after we looked at the literally deadly consequences of doing away with cash bail in New York City. Be that as it may, Californians are preparing to go to the polls and decide whether the state should effectively do away with all bail in all cases. Does that mean that nobody will be held over until trial, no matter the charges they face? Not quite. But anyone deemed to not be a risk to society would simply be released on their own recognizance and expected to show up for their trial. And how will they determine who is in the “safe” category? They’re going to let a computer algorithm figure it out. What could possibly go wrong?

Judge blocks university from punishing male student who claimed female student raped him
It argued due process incites “campus sexual assault on a mass scale”

Dont Look Now, But Los Angeles’ Homicide Rate Is Setting Records
New York City has been racing toward losing its position as the “safest big city in America” all year, but it’s got some competition coming into the home stretch. The City of Angels has been running up its own dismal record when it comes to violent crime. While still nowhere near Baltimore levels, Los Angeles has now racked up more killings than it did in all of 2019. And if a way isn’t found to turn things around, they are on pace to see more than 300 murders by the end of the year. It hasn’t been this bad in more than a decade.

Your Children, Their Politics
Further to this item here, Rafi steers us to more “equity” news, this time from the public high schools of San Francisco

George Washington U. tells “Girls Who Code” student group it cannot discriminate based on sex
Also told the Albanian student group it had to update its club constitution

After Students for Life rejected as “hate group,” members appeal decision
Judicial branch said its presence would lead to harassment

The Despicable Teachings on College Campuses
The ugliness that we have recently witnessed—including rioting, billions of dollars of property destruction, assaults, murders, and grossly stupid claims about our nation—has its origins on college campuses.

Top-Down White Penitence Is Shaking Up and Roiling the American Workplace
A white physician working in Raleigh, North Carolina, says he has participated in multiple diversity training exercises—including two in the last two years—without a fuss. But he was taken aback when his employer, Duke University Health System, said this summer it will roll out a comprehensive strategy to purge the last vestiges of racism from the workplace.

DOJ draws non-liberal judge in suit against Yale
I wrote here about the Department of Justice’s suit against Yale University for race discrimination in undergraduate admissions. The action was filed in federal district court in Connecticut.

Sorority member put on probation for ‘unbecoming’ conservative values expressed on social media
Social media posts criticizing Black Lives Matter, other conservative viewpoints at issue

Student group defends sorority member reportedly sanctioned for conservative views
A member of a sorority at the University of Kansas is being sanctioned for her conservative posts on social media.

The Direct Fusion Drive That Could Get Us to Saturn in Just 2 Years
Experts say the right kind of propulsion system could carry spacecraft to Saturn in just two years. The direct fusion drive (DFD), a concept being developed by Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, would make extremely fast work of the nearly billion miles between Earth and Saturn.

 

Economy & Taxes

 

Raising Arizona Taxes — Maybe (Part 2)
In a recent Corner post, I discussed Arizona’s Proposition 208, which would introduce a new fifth income tax bracket, raising the top rate from 4.5 percent to 8 percent.

Bernie Sanders Reportedly Wants To Be Labor Secretary In A Biden Admin.
A Socialist heading the Labor Dept., and ex-bartender economics-illiterate AOC pushing the trillions-of-dollars Green New Deal?

Apple, Google and a Deal That Controls the Internet
In a landmark antitrust complaint, the Justice Department is targeting a secretive partnership that is worth billions of dollars to both companies.

 

International

 

Morales aide claims victory in Bolivia’s election redo
Evo Morales’ party claimed victory in Bolivia’s presidential election as official results trickled in from Sunday’s high-stakes redo of last year’s annulled ballot that saw the leftist leader resign and flee the country.

Australian prof wants to rename body parts named after men
A professor in Australia argues that body parts shouldn’t be named after men.

The Left burns churches in Chile, the Vatican is silent.
This was Santiago de Chile yesterday.

Why This Detransitioning UK Woman Sued a Gender Clinic
A female information technology engineer in London, for whom doctors prescribed testosterone injections and a double mastectomy for her gender dysphoria, had her day in court this month against the gender clinic where she received treatment.

UK set to pass bill allowing police, gov’t agents to break law when “necessary”
Human rights groups have criticized a U.K. bill likely to become law which will allow criminal actions by government agencies.

Woke Rugby
The problem with male bodies crashing into female bodies in a notoriously dangerous sport such as rugby is glaring, yet “more evidence” is apparently needed. Has anyone put forward the slightest bit of evidence that men who undergo alterations to their sexual organs or who claim transgender status are literally, materially, physiologically female? Nope.

Anti-Hate Law in Spain: Up to 2 Years in Prison for “Humiliating” a Chavista on Facebook
Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Valencia accuses a Spaniard of publishing messages against the communists and asks for the payment of 2,000 euros for moral damages to a Chavista

UK Conservative Lays Down the Law: No Critical Race Theory, ‘White Privilege’ in Schools
The Black Lives Matter movement and critical race theory have not just made inroads in American culture and U.S. schools. Educators in Britain have also pushed to “decolonize” education through these Marxist movements. Yet Kemi Badenoch, a member of Parliament and parliamentary under-secretary of state for equalities, firmly condemned the BLM/CRT infiltration of British schools, arguing that it is illegal for schools to teach these politically-charged ideas as if they were neutral fact.

Is The “Revolution” In Thailand Over Already?
Last week we learned that some protests were brewing in the streets of Thailand’s capital, driven largely by students demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister and democratic reforms that would lessen the power of the monarchy. The Thai government responded in a rather rapid and brutal fashion, declaring a state of national emergency and arresting some of the protest leaders who were shipped off to parts unknown. The protests, though far less violent than the ones we’ve been seeing in the United States lately, continued on each night. But now the Prime Minister has declared an end to the official state of emergency in what appears to be an olive branch being offered to the demonstrators. So does this mean that the nascent revolution is over or have the students convinced the government to enact a few reforms?

Venezuela’s Dictator Hugo Chavez Packed the Courts
Almost from the moment Republicans said they intended to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Democrats began to vow they would pack the court if Republicans went through with their plan.

Polish High Court Outlaws Abortion for Fetal Disability
Poland has traditionally outlawed most abortions, except for those obtained due to fetal abnormality or to save the life or health of the mother. Now, the Constitutional Tribunal, Poland’s highest court, has ruled that abortion obtained because of fetal disability is unconstitutional.

Opposition activist leaves embassy haven to flee Venezuela
Prominent opposition activist Leopoldo López has abandoned the Spanish ambassador’s residence in Caracas and left Venezuela after years of frustrated efforts to oust the nation’s socialist president, his party said Saturday.

Ultrafast experiments capture speed-of-light excitation delay as photon travels across H2
Scientists in Germany have measured a zeptosecond time delay between a photon hitting a dihydrogen molecule and its electrons being ejected. They say this “birth-time delay” corresponds to the time taken for the photon to travel the length of the molecule.

 

Opinion

 

Weimar America?
For those of you who haven’t listened to our latest “Three Whisky Happy Hour” podcast where “Lucretia” and I ponder Bari Weiss’s Tablet article “Stop Being Shocked,” we summarized and extended her case that the post-liberal progressivism now clearly ascendant in the Democratic Party represents an existential threat not just to Jews, but eventually to everyone who dissents from woke-progressive-social justice orthodoxy.

Women’s March Doesn’t Respect Women Who Don’t Think Like Them
Over the weekend, Independent Women’s Forum, in partnership with Independent Women’s Voice, planned an event to give voice to all the women who aren’t represented by the Women’s March. We talked to the property authorities to make sure we were following the rules so that we could lawfully gather outside of the Supreme Court. We showed up early on Saturday morning to set up a stage and podium, and set up materials, including face masks, buttons, signs, hand sanitizers, and social distancing spots to guide people to stay safe during the event. We lined up an impressive group of women to share their different perspectives.

“Christian” Nationalism Leads To Extinction
This weekend, the president attended a charismatic church service in Las Vegas during which the preacher prophesied that he would win a second term. Denise Goulet, the leader of the church, supposedly had a dream in which she was informed by God that Mr. Trump is getting a “second wind” that will carry him to reelection. American flags were also waved on stage during worship and it wasn’t at all clear whether the congregants were looking to Jesus Christ or to Uncle Sam for salvation.

What a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” Would Actually Look Like
On the menu today: Robert Reich and other Democrats yearn for a post-Trump “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”; a Republican pollster lays out why he thinks Trump has a much better chance to win reelection than the conventional wisdom suggests; and a pair of very special announcements.

Ordered Liberty is Not White Supremacy and Does Not Date from 1619
The November 3 election will be an existential moment for the United States. As my friend, mentor, and boss Richard Viguerie has been saying, “it’s the ballgame.”

How Air Conditioning Ruined America
When Joe Biden was first elected to the U.S. Senate having just reached his 30th birthday, he met with James Eastland, a veteran segregationist Democrat from Mississippi, and asked him what the most significant change to the Senate had been in his time. Eastland first arrived in the Senate in 1941. “Air conditionin’,” said Eastland. Huh? Biden asked him to explain. “You know, Joe, before we had air condition’ all that recessed lighting all used to be great big pieces of glass like in showers. Come around May . . . that darn sun would beat down on that dome, hit that glass, act like a magnifying glass and heat up the Chamber, and we would all go home in May and June for the year. Then we put in air conditionin’, stayed year-round, and ruined America.”

Don’t Pickpocket Your Students
Imagine you’re a professor somewhere. You hear rumors of the creation of a new Office of Student Property Security. “Whatever,” you think.

Keeping the Olympics in Beijing Is a Political Act
The international response to the Chinese Communist Party’s drive to decimate its Uyghur population in Xinjiang has picked up in recent months and, despite some initial inertia, led many to the realization that Beijing should not host the 2022 Winter Olympics. In recent days, the International Olympic Committee has indicated that it just doesn’t care.

Could It Happen Here? The Parallels Between Soviet Bloc and Modern US
Disturbing parallels can be drawn between the United States and the Soviet bloc of Eastern Europe, commentator and bestselling author Rod Dreher says.

A cautionary tale about how democracy can subvert itself
Bunga Bunga reviewed

Woke Calvinism and Biden
Looking at the messaging of the two POTUS candidates, and taking a step back, something struck me. And it isn’t the contrast between the blustering of Trump and the pathetic doddering of Biden, or the contemptible degree to which the media gatekeepers and Big Tech are running interference for one side. No, from a distance, there’s another, deeper story.

A Modest Proposal: Make Universities Pay for Student Debt Forgiveness
It is no secret that the student debt burden in America, now estimated at a cumulative $1.64 trillion, is one of the greatest scandals of a scandal-debauched age. According to Forbes, it is now the second-highest consumer debt category, higher than both credit card and auto loan debt, and behind only mortgage debt. It represents a crisis of national proportions.

Did You Know? The Ignorance of College Graduates
Students are paying a higher price tag for college, but is the quality of their education also increasing, or at least staying stable? A lot of indicators suggest “no.”