DON’T GET COCKY: Black Voters Are Shifting Right and the Left Is Losing It.

Let’s start with the insulting. MSNBC host Tiffany Cross slammed the Republican National Committee’s slate of “diverse” Republican congressional candidates, saying “faces of color do not always equate to voices of color.” She then tokenized minority Republicans, including those currently serving in Congress such as Senators Ted Cruz, Tim Scott, and Marco Rubio, and Representatives Byron Donalds, Mayra Flores, Nicole Malliotakis, Burgess Owens, and others, adding that they are “the political equivalent of ‘some of my best friends are Black.'”

Liberal elites often dismiss conservative minority candidates to avoid real debate. Hosts like Cross, elected officials, and political pundits don’t want minority voters to know that there are good reasons to consider non-liberal candidates, especially those of the same race. It undercuts the narrative that Democrats are the party of inclusivity. Increasingly, the criticism that Republicans don’t reach out to communities of color is proving as false as the belief that conservative values don’t resonate with minorities.

If Democrats were the party of inclusivity, they wouldn’t require minorities to toe the line on ideological purity.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Is This Joe Biden’s Biggest Lie Ever?

MOST “ARTISTS” WOULD RATHER BE APPARATCHIKS: The literary world comes out for censorship.

OH MY: Tesla Engineers Visit Twitter Office to Review Code for Musk.

TOO CLOSE TO CALL: We Now Have the First Poll Since the Fetterman-Oz Debate.

WHAT I AM READING NOW: Decluttering For Dummies. #Commission Earned

MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER: Infantilization Of The Apocalypse.

The activists who keep degrading precious works of art, and themselves, claim to be concerned about food and energy supplies, but in opposing oil, gas and fertilizer production they are actively reducing both. Over the last several months, I have described the demands of climate activists as fanatical and pointed to a large body of evidence suggesting that nihilism, narcissism, and feelings of personal inadequacy are the primary motives.

But nihilism, narcissism, and personal inadequacy alone do not explain why climate activists have chosen temper tantrum tactics. After all, the greatest protest movements of all time engaged in far more grown-up and dignified tactics. Think of the Salt March led by Gandhi, the Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Martin Luther King, and the anti-whaling protests of Greenpeace.

Where protesters in the past asked to be treated like adults, climate protesters today demand to be treated like children. Civil rights activists in the 1950s sat at lunch counters and demanded to be treated like full adults. Notably, it was racist counterprotesters who poured milkshakes over them. Today, it’s the protesters who are spilling milk and throwing food.

Why is that, exactly? Why have Left-wing activists regressed in their tactics?

When you don’t have facts or reason on your side, don’t care to learn the facts and can’t be bothered to reason — what’s left?

HIGHER EDUCATION WAS ONCE DEFENDED AS A RESOURCE FOR FREEDOM: University doubles down on reporting system only weeks after legal firm issues demand letter: Students accused of violating the policy are encouraged not to defend themselves and simply ‘take responsibility for their actions.’

I prefer to make educrats take responsibility for theirs.

VIDEO: J.D. Vance Fries Tim Ryan in Extra Crispy New ‘Breakfast’ Ad.

HAHA: SDSU professor removed for saying n-word back in the classroom, teaching on ‘Offensiphobia.’

SUCCESSFUL TEST: SpaceX fires up huge Falcon Heavy rocket ahead of Nov. 1 launch.

HMM: Russia Now Has a Second Frontline Set Up Just to Kill Its Deserters: Intel.

Ukrainian intelligence on Thursday released an audio recording that appears to capture in disturbing detail the mayhem and internal rifts between Russian troops on the battlefield. In the five-minute clip, described as an intercepted phone conversation between a Russian soldier and his wife, the man says he and the other men in his unit are a comfortable distance from the actual fighting.

“They moved us back to the second line, there’s shooting somewhere ahead of us, but we’re back here for now in the trenches,” he says, before boasting that he’d been lucky and found a “Rosneft jacket covered in blood, but warm.”

“They brought the inmates here… from prison. But they led them somewhere way up front. And we’re sitting here as a retreat-blocking detachment, fuck. If someone runs back, we snuff them out.”

“What a nightmare,” his wife says.

“That’s how we have it set up. We sit on the second line, guarding the first. Behind us, there’s another line. If you go that way, you also won’t make it. So it’s impossible to run away. They shoot their own.”

This could just be Ukrainian propaganda. On the other hand, Stalin had the NKVD do the exact same thing during World War II.

I MAY REACTIVATE MY TWITTER ACCOUNT, AT LEAST CEREMONIALLY: Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter and fired its top executives.

Related: Musk’s new broom sweeps clean on day one, will reinstate banned accounts.

Jazz Shaw is testing out the censorship to see if it’s still there:

IN THE MAIL: We Are Not One People: Secession and Separatism in American Politics Since 1776. Looks interesting.

FAIRNESS: Plaintiff in Title IX Wrongful Discipline Case Against University May Depose His Accuser.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Might Be Time to Chill Champagne for a Republican Governor Red Wave. “Should I turn out to be spectacularly wrong about all of this, I will be the first to call myself a paste-eater.”

YES. THE ANSWER IS YES. Chronicle Of Higher Education Debate: Is UC-Berkeley Law School Discriminating Against Jews?

IT’S NEWS THAT IT’S NO LONGER NEWS: SpaceX launches 53 Starlink satellites, lands rocket at sea (video).

OH: Retired general’s pro-Saudi op-eds didn’t disclose financial incentives.

Over four years, Ret. Air Force General Charles “Chuck” Wald published a series of op-eds with Reuters, NBC News, The Hill, and Newsweek in which he promoted weapons sales, U.S. security guarantees, and closer military cooperation with Saudi Arabia while simultaneously working as a security consultant for the kingdom’s defense ministry.

Readers were kept in the dark about this potential conflict of interest.

Over 500 retired U.S. military personnel, many of them, like Wald, high-ranking officers, were approved by the State Department to conduct work for foreign governments, according to recently released records obtained as a result of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits by The Washington Post and the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO.

I’d ask why State approves such things but the answer has long been clear about the corruption of our institutions.

WHAT DID GREENS USE BEFORE CANDLES? ELECTRICITY! UK government has plan for winter blackouts. Britain has massive unexploited domestic energy reserves, but . . . “Modern life is literally impossible without electricity, and rolling blackouts will be a stark reminder of how the societal elites have grossly mismanaged the economy and world affairs. Only so much of the blame can be assigned to Vladimir Putin, give how prominent green energy has been in the plans of Western countries.”

IT’S BEGUN: Elon Musk Lays Down the Law in Memo to Twitter Advertisers.

IT’S WORSE AT THE BORDER THAN YOU THINK: No, I mean a lot worse. Issues & Insights explains.

WE ARE RULED BY CROOKS, INCOMPETENTS, AND CLOWNS: A DOJ Official Hyped the Jussie Smollett Hoax. Now She’s Holding a Seminar on Identifying Hate Crimes.

DEAL OF THE DAY: ComfiLife Gel Enhanced Seat Cushion. #CommissionEarned

THIS STRIKES ME AS UNWISE OR AT LEAST UNNECESSARY: U.S. makes unusual disclosure of ballistic missile submarine’s presence in Persian Gulf.

JOSH BLACKMAN: Justice Barrett and Affirmative Action.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: How a Diesel Shortage Could Cripple the U.S. Economy.

THEY CAN’T WIN IF THEY DON’T CHEAT: In Orlando, Jaw-dropping Allegations of Systemic Ballot Harvesting in Black Neighborhoods.

JEFFREY CARTER: Good Management Beats Good Ideas. “The question Facebook investors have to ask themselves is what are the goals of the management team at Facebook? Is it to enrich the shareholders? Is Metaverse a great long-term bet on the future that will have a more than 3x return to the valuation of the company? Or is it something different? . . . Facebook is a powerful platform and can recover. But, is management self-aware enough and can they abandon their personal ideologies to turn the ship around? I don’t think so. It’s a religion and fanaticism. It’s not operating a business.”

Get woke, go broke.

TOMORROW IS RELEASE DAY! Bowl Of Red.

ACCULTURATE REPORTING EVENTS WHAT KIND OF JOURNALISM IS THAT???  NewsNation fired reporter who questioned network’s ‘mission’ after airing Trump rally.

FAULT IS A WEIRD WAY TO SPELL PLAN: America’s Energy Crisis is Mostly US Democrats’ Fault.

I PICKED A HECK OF A DAY TO SEND MY SHOCKED FACE OUT FOR CLEANING:  Nancy Pelosi attacks media merger — after getting big campaign donation.

MY BELOVED STATE* IS UNDER VOTE FRAUD BY MAIL. THEY HAVE NO CHANCE:  Will a mad mom or a happy dad be governor in Colorado?

*I had to move, but my heart will always be in Colorado.

BEFORE OUR SCHOOLS ‘TEACH’ CHARACTER SHOULDN’T THEY HAVE TO DEMONSTRATE IT?  2 in 3 parents wish they were taught this when they were kids.

THEY DON’T OUTNUMBER ARMED AMERICANS. AND THEY’LL RUN LIKE RATS IF BRANDON TRIES TO CALL ON THEM:  Brandon’s foreign legion.

WE CAN’T:  How Can We Trust the CDC with Our Children’s Health?

THE DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN MARXISTS AS LONG AS I’VE FOLLOWED THEM: The switcheroos of the two parties.

They just used to pretend harder.

IT WILL COME HERE. NOT SOON ENOUGH TO SAVE A LOT OF KIDS, THOUGH:  The Brits issue some sanity on underage transgender transition.

NO. THANK YOU:  Biden wants you to enter his fantasy world.

MOTHERS, DON’T LET YOUR KIDS ATTEND IVY LEAGUES:  Harvard students get paid $2,700 to go protest in favor of reverse racism; The Hill reporter openly says mental compentence in a “Democrat” office holder is not important; Google again skewing election-related search results; Elon Musk enters Twitter HQ as “Chief Twit”.

FALSE FLAG?  Hobbs Blames Lake For Burglary, Then Dodges.

YOU DON’T SAY?  Air Force takes ‘Full Responsibility’ for Leak of GOP Congressional Candidate’s Sexual Assault Records.

THEY’RE NOT EVEN TRYING ANYMORE:  $5 Gas in 2020? Biden Delivers Another Lie-Filled Speech as He Tries to Hype Up NY Democrats.

LADIES, GENTLEMEN AND SMALL DRAGONS:  This is how you troll. Go you and do likewise.

UPDATE (From Ed): It is indeed a great troll, but alas, not from Trump himself: MSNBC’s Alex Wagner and Twitter Blue Checks Fall for Fake Trump Statement Claiming His Account Will Be Reinstated After Musk Takeover.

MY SCHADENBONER IS ENORMOUS: Elon Musk fires Twitter’s top brass after closing $44 billion deal: reports.

Meanwhile, a friend comments: “I wrote many nasty articles about Elon Musk back in the day. I think I owe him an apology. He just took over the most tyrannical force in American public life, and is giving every indicator of removing its tyrannical effects.”

NOW THEY TELL US: Wemple: James Bennet was right and his leftist critics inside and outside the NY Times were wrong. “In retrospect, the claim that black Times staffers were endangered by the op-ed seems particularly indefensible. Wemple reports he spoke to about 30 staffers and asked if any of them still believed that. None were willing to defend it on the record. Personally, I’m not invested in James Bennet’s career but I think this was a pretty clear case of arguably the most powerful newspaper in the US buckling under pressure from a woke mob using woke mob tactics to get their way. The fact that the mob won is definitely bad news.”

This was obvious all along, of course. But we’re seeing a lot of this sort or writing lately. Perhaps they’re preparing the Democrats for a post-shellacking rethinking. Or maybe a post-shellacking purge.

And I don’t really know Bennet — I met him over a decade ago when The Atlantic was trying to recruit my blog to join Andrew Sullivan, Megan McArdle, etc., and he seemed like a nice guy, but that’s all. As The Atlantic staff and I got to know each other, it seemed like a bad fit, and nothing has made me wish it had worked out otherwise. And yet, even in its current diminished state The Atlantic seems more open to different ideas than the NYT, which is very faint praise indeed.

OUT ON A LIMB: China ‘no longer deserves benefit of the doubt:’ Bombshell Senate report concludes that COVID ‘most likely’ leaked from lab — as lawmakers point the finger at Beijing.

CRIME IS JUST A FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION: MetroGUARD: MTA pays for private security as Gov. Hochul ignores rampant crime.

OPEN THREAD: Talk about what interests you.

DON’T GET COCKY: Throw in the towel. Kari Lake up by 11 in Arizona.

There’s almost definitely something odd going on in the Grand Canyon State and recent surveys suggest that there may be more ticket-splitting than usual coming our way on November 8th. Just this week, the Arizona Senate race moved into a tie, with Real Clear Politics shifting the election from “leans Democrat” to a tossup. But at the very same time, the gubernatorial fight is shaping up to be a blowout unless there is a huge shift in momentum at the eleventh hour. A FOX 10 InsiderAdvantage poll conducted this week gives Republican Kari Lake an eleven-point lead over her debate-adverse Democratic rival, Katie Hobbs. To put it mildly, Democrats are going into full-blown panic mode and scrambling to prevent a potential red wave from turning into a crimson tsunami. (Fox 10 Phoenix)

A new FOX 10 InsiderAdvantage poll shows the race for Governor – widening a bit. But the race for U.S. Senate is turning into a dead heat.

With less than 2 weeks to go before the November election, Republican Kari Lake leads Democrat Katie Hobbs by 11 percentage points. Only about 2% of voters are undecided. Pollster Matt Towery believes that Hobbs’ reluctance to debate Lake may be a reason why the gap has widened in recent weeks. According to InsiderAdvantage, Lake is polling higher among older adults and Hispanics.

I don’t want to jinx anyone by calling any closely contested race a “done deal” with more than a week left to go and Lake clearly can’t afford to take her foot off the gas at this stage. But that same poll showed the race being far closer only a month ago and even favored Hobbs to win earlier in the summer. All of the momentum in the later stages of the battle has been in Lake’s corner.

If Lake is actually drawing those numbers, it could also propel Blake Masters across the finish line: Leftist Think Tank’s Poll: Blake Masters and Mark Kelly Are Tied.

As Glenn likes to say though about eschewing the cockiness, “Seriously, if you care about this election, you need to be out volunteering and donating. Commenting on the Internet doesn’t count.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China rolls out rocket to launch 3rd and final space station module.

THE WAPO’S ERIC WEMPLE: James Bennet was right.

Controversy over an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) consumed the New York Times in June 2020 and claimed the job of then-editorial page editor James Bennet. Two-and-a-half years later, Bennet has shared some thoughts about the episode — and, in particular, the role of Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger.

“He set me on fire and threw me in the garbage and used my reverence for the institution against me,” Bennet recently told Ben Smith of Semafor. “This is why I was so bewildered for so long after I had what felt like all my colleagues treating me like an incompetent fascist.”

WASN’T JOE BIDEN THERE FOR OPENING NIGHT? A 1931 Broadway Play That Describes 2022 Politics.

Can a President be impeached because he likes corn muffins? If Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler, and Nancy Pelosi are involved, the answer is most probably yes. But this post isn’t about an actual impeachment. It’s about an impeachment that happened in a Broadway play. IMHO it’s the most biting political satire ever written for the stage. And though it opened on Broadway ninety-one years ago, it perfectly describes politics today.

On  December 26th, 1931, the most biting political satire ever written opened at the Music Box Theater on Broadway. Called Of Thee I Sing, it was the first successful American musical with a consistently satiric tone.

What made it work was it captured Americans’ feelings about the politics of the day. What would make it work today is that it captures Americans’ feelings about the politics of now. It includes political issues such as identity politics, a political elite, irrelevant campaign themes, big money politics,  and a Congress that changes its positions every time the wind changes and impeached at the drop of a hat, just to name a few.

Read the whole thing.

GREAT MOMENTS IN MESSAGE DISCIPLINE: Biden pushes Corvette to 118 mph in drag race against Colin Powell’s son.

President Biden is burning rubber away from the the midterm campaign trail.

The 79-year-old took his 1967 Corvette Stingray for a spin on an episode of CNBC’s “Jay Leno’s Garage” that aired Wednesday night.

Biden’s green convertible, featuring a 350-horsepower V-8 engine and a four-speed manual transmission, was no match for Michael Powell’s more powerful automatic 2015 Stingray.

The president, clad in a navy blue Ralph Lauren polo, khakis and sunglasses, was beaten off the line at the James J. Rowley Secret Service training facility in Beltsville, Md., and never caught up, despite getting the classic car up to 118 mph.

Powell, the son of the late Secretary of State Colin Powell, avenged Biden’s victory over the elder Powell in a similar drag race that aired on the program in 2016.

Funny how the internal combustion engine is a singular environmental evil — until it’s time for a pre-midterms PR appearance by Grandpa Brandon:

● Biden praises high gas prices as part of ‘incredible transition’ of the US economy away from fossil fuels.

● Biden seeks to make half of new U.S. auto fleet electric by 2030.

● Biden last year: “We will take, literally, millions of automobiles off the road — off the road, saving tens of millions of barrels of oil, dealing with cleaning up the air. This is not hyperbole; this is a fact.”

● Granholm: California’s New Gas Vehicle Sale Ban ‘Could Be’ a National Model. “Elex Michaelson [of Los Angeles’ Fox affiliate] asked [Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm], ‘California made national headlines by becoming the first state to say, by 2035, we’re not going to have any gas-powered vehicles that are new that are being sold. You can still drive your old ones, but you can’t sell new ones. Do you like this concept?’ Granholm responded, ‘Yeah, I do. I think California really is leaning in. And of course, the federal government has a goal of — the president has announced — by 2030 that half of the vehicles in the U.S., the new ones sold would be electric.’”

● Kinsley Gaffe: State Dept. official slammed for saying he prefers high gas prices.

● Buttigieg Whines About Americans Not Wanting Electric Cars.

● Pete Buttigieg blasted for touting ‘benefit’ for electric vehicle owners from ‘pain’ of high gas prices.

And all of the games with gas prices:

Earlier: Biden: Releasing 15 Million More Barrels of Oil Reserves Right Before Election ‘Not Politically Motivated at All!’

More malarkey: “Let’s debunk some myths: My administration has not stopped or slowed U.S. oil production.”

Joe Biden, it’s time to meet Joe Biden!

● Biden’s plan to cancel Keystone pipeline signals a rocky start with Canada.

—The Washington Post, January 19th, 2021.

● Success: Biden Gets the High Gas Prices He Promised.

—The Pipeline, June 17th.

● Biden pulls 3 offshore oil lease sales, curbing new drilling this year.

—The Washington Post, May 12th.

● Biden administration won’t appeal judge’s ruling revoking Gulf of Mexico drilling leases.

—The Washington Post, February 28th.

Flashbacks: Why Aren’t Democrats Dancing for Joy About Sky-High Gas Prices?

In the service of reducing carbon emissions, Democrats have long openly worked to raise the price of fossil fuel energy. They have done so by proposing carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, higher leasing fees, and other measures to jack up costs so people burn less of it. This is why Barack Obama said, in answer to a related question about electricity, that his energy plan would make prices “necessarily skyrocket.” This is why Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna praised BP’s CEO less than six months ago for pledging to reduce oil and gas production by 40% by 2030. Reductions in oil production and rising gasoline prices are part of the Democrats’ agenda and the Paris climate agenda.

There’s even more to it than that. Over the past decade, the Democrats’ overt hostility toward fossil fuels has even driven companies in the industry to sideline production, purely for public relations purposes, while prioritizing meaningless, politically correct carbon emissions goals. How can Democrats suddenly feign outrage at their incredible success in influencing the industry?

Is it a mystery why Democrats aren’t doing a sack dance and celebrating the salvation of planet earth?

There’s the small matter of their political survival, of course. It would be unseemly — like doing a jig at an Irish funeral — to celebrate other people’s pain. And it would cost many Democrats who are secretly jubilant about high gas prices their political careers.

Instead, Democrats are pretending to look for a way to “ease consumers’ pain.”

In September of 2019, after CNN’s seven hour “climate change town hall,” Bryan Preston wrote, “Seriously, if you see all of the above — which is just a sample — and vote for any of these people for any office at any level, it’s on you. If you like Venezuela, voting for any of them will bring you a whole lot of Venezuela.”

And as Kate of Small Dead Animals wrote after the CNN horror show, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking they don’t mean it.”

● Aren’t California’s High Gas Prices What The Left Have Wanted?

● NBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times in lockstep call for higher gas taxes.

● 2008 L.A. Times headline: “The joy of $8 gas.”

● “Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket…”

In other words, Obama administration retreads are following the same playbook as the original Obama administration: “We’re going to keep at it to ensure the American people are paying their fair share for gas,” is the perfect Kinsley Gaffe for an Obama administration retread like Biden:  As Steven Chu, Obama’s then-incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

So despite Biden claiming today that high gas prices are Putin’s fault, is it fair to ask if Biden is on the payroll of Putin? As Walter Russell Mead wrote in 2017:

If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:

Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
Blocking oil and gas pipelines
Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cutting U.S. military spending
Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.

“Yep,” Glenn added in late 2019. “You know who did do these things? Obama. You know who supports these things now? Democrats.”

● Americans Need To Pay More for Gas To Defend ‘Liberal World Order.’

● Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.

● The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.

Related: Biden tormented by Republican guerrilla campaign and ‘I did it’ stickers.

Also: 100Pcs I Did That Biden Funny Car Stickers. #Resist #CommissionEarned

ELON MUSK ANNOUNCES HE BOUGHT TWITTER IN $44 BILLION DEAL:

The Tesla/SpaceX boss explained his reasons for the $44 billion purchase Thursday, saying, “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide in our society.”

He continues, “In the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has fueled and catered to those polarized extremes, as they believe that is what brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Purified Sand Particles Have Anti-Obesity Effects, Scientists Confirm.

GOOD: Zuckerberg’s Empire Collapses.

THE DEMAND FOR ELECTRIC-CAR DRIVERS EXCEEDS THE SUPPLY: Electrify America Chargers Are Rarely Used – What’s Up With Non-Tesla Fast Charging? “Electrify America reported they conducted 1.45 million charging sessions in 2021. They announce that with pride, but it’s worth noting that they had around 3,500 charging stalls at the end of 2021, and around 2,300 at the start, for an average of just under 3,000. So that works out to a rough average of around 1.25 charging sessions a day per stall, a shockingly low number.”

DRINKING WITH James Bond.

ALL THIS AND WORLD WAR TWO: MSNBC’s O’Donnell Compares John Fetterman to FDR & Winston Churchill.

By tying FDR and Churchill to Fetterman, O’Donnell hopes to lead his viewers to believe that Fetterman is just as capable of performing his duties as Senator as FDR and Churchill were in leading their respective nations in World War II.

The problem is that FDR was stricken by Polio and unable to walk. That didn’t affect his ability to speak or make important decisions. Whereas Fetterman is clearly mentally incapacitated.

O’Donnell is so desperate for his party to control the United States Senate that he’s willing to lie to his audience.

To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, if you’re a Democrat, you go to war against the people you serve: The town John Fetterman ran is in ruins. He was mayor of Braddock for over a decade. People there say it shows.

SALENA ZITO: The painful story of how John Fetterman arrived at Tuesday night’s humiliation.

For the first time in this election cycle, most of the people sitting around the restaurant bar casually watching the debate saw the depth of the effects of the stroke Lt. Gov. John Fetterman suffered from in May when he began the debate Tuesday evening with a “good night” as his opening greeting to viewers.

It only got worse from there.

For 60 painful minutes, the York native and Harvard graduate, who had made his home in Western Pennsylvania for the last 20 years, struggled vividly with cognitive issues in handling the simplest of questions tossed his way during the debate.

Most of the voters watching had surely seen him speak at small rallies, where he struggled but on the surface seemed OK. But only now were they fully realizing that he was just repeating memorized lines and could not actually comprehend when others tried to converse with him.

Many of those watching had no idea how bad Fetterman’s health was, causing disbelief that no one had reported this sooner. And many were angry that Democrats and reporters knew all about it and said nothing.

The one reporter who did mention Fetterman’s inability to converse — NBC news reporter Dasha Burns — was viciously attacked for her dispassionate reporting, not just from Fetterman’s campaign and supporters but also by blue-check journalists on Twitter and her own NBC News colleague Savannah Guthrie.

Related: The Reputations Ruined by the Pennsylvania Senate Debate.

We were warned again when a journalist committed the unforgivable professional sin of relating to her audience her observations about the candidate’s health. When NBC reporter Dasha Burns was granted rare, intimate access to the candidate in October, she concluded that Fetterman’s impairments were so significant that even assistive technology didn’t help. She noted that “it wasn’t clear he was understanding our conversation,” and she was immediately body-checked by some of media’s most prominent members and institutions.

The Associated Press, no less, published a report on the extent to which her “comment about Fetterman draws criticism,” a reportorial endeavor that consisted almost exclusively of curating mean tweets. “This is just nonsense,” podcaster and reporter Kara Swisher said of her colleague’s observation. “Maybe this reporter is just bad at small talk.” Fetterman’s “comprehension is not at all impaired,” insisted Rebecca Traister. She had only recently authored a confused profile of the candidate in which she alleged that his condition is simultaneously imperceptible, improving, and such a struggle that it has made Fetterman “even more familiar to voters.” Worst of all, the AP reported, “the conservative website Townhall.com tweeted Burns’ quote.” You get the picture: Dig too deep, and you’re only going to give the wrong people political ammunition. It worked.

The sunk-costs fallacy describes a tendency to devote ever more resources to a lost cause rather than simply take the loss. And for Fetterman’s media boosters, some of whom sunk so much reputational capital into the idea that the Senate candidate was up to the job, Tuesday night’s debate was a big loss. But rather than concede that fact, their crusade continued with the fury of an addict chasing a high.

To the members of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board, Fetterman turned in a workmanlike performance. He “had zingers.” He produced “mostly direct, thoughtful answers” even if his delivery was off. “He struggled, more than many were comfortable with,” one editor allowed, “But that says more about us, than him.” “Fetterman’s style may be halting,” New York Times editor Sheryl Gay Stolberg admitted, but “Everyone knew what he meant.”

Burns actually reported bad news about a Democrat — no wonder her fellow Democratic Party operatives with bylines turned en masse to attack her.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 6 Ways Good Guys Screw Up in Self-Defense Situations.

NICE SHIRT: Van Heusen Men’s Dress Shirt. #CommissionEarned

BE PREPARED: Venado Concealed Carry Vest for Men. #CommissioEarned

RED-PILLED: Tim Robbins: ‘You Can’t Over-Regulate People’s Lives.’

REPORT: Twitter Employees Draft Letter Demanding Assurances Against Discrimination for Their Political Beliefs.

According to a released article in Time Magazine, Twitter employees have drafted a letter containing several ‘demands.’ In addition to demanding they are not fired, they demand assurances against discrimination for their political beliefs.

America’s Newspaper of Record has live video of Twitter employees responding to Musk:

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: New research has determined that men do, in fact, have a much stronger sex drive than women. Though of course there are outliers among both sexes.

MSNBC INVITES PROMINENT ANTI-SEMITE TO DISCUSS WHY ANTI-SEMITES SHOULD BE CANCELED:

Sounds like Al Sharpton’s anti-Semitism was “intentional,” right? It definitely was. During his interview on Morning Joe to discuss the Kanye West situation, however, Sharpton alluded to his past anti-Semitism by suggesting he had accidentally said some “things that are harmful and could be interpreted wrong.” He didn’t really “mean it,” unlike Kanye.

And the people at MSNBC really buy that? They don’t care. It’s been more than four years since MSNBC host Joy Reid claimed a hacker planted homophobic, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic comments on her old blog. She hired a cybersecurity expert and notified the FBI, but we’re still awaiting the results of that so-called investigation. Reid was promoted in 2020.

Has Sharpton ever apologized? Not really. In a 2020 article commemorating the Crown Heights riots, Tablet magazine editor at large Liel Leibovitz wrote: “As the years went by, Sharpton was given ample opportunity to apologize for his prominent role in this modern day anti-Semitic bloodletting. He never did.”

When MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was a congressman, did he ever sponsor a resolution condemning Sharpton for his “racist and anti-Semitic views”? He did! In March 2000, then-Rep. Scarborough (R., Fla.) introduced a concurrent resolution blasting Sharpton’s “vicious verbal anti-Semitic attacks directed at members of the Jewish faith,” as well as his “fierce demagoguery [that] incited violence, riots, and murder in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York.”

Related: Ye learns that hate is bad for business.

Ye’s antisemitic comments, such as declaring that he would go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE” and continuously talking about how Jews “own the media,” have resulted in dire financial consequences for him, as the various businesses he works with cancel their contracts and denounce his remarks.

The most recent — and arguably the most important — business collab that Ye has watched crumble is his partnership with Adidas. The lucrative multi-year deal to design sneaker brand Yeezy was valued at $1.5 billion. Without it, Ye’s fortune drops to $400 million. The price you pay for hate, eh?

Some hate though, has long been acceptable to giant corporations:

HMM: Expert warns of dangerous TikTok trend of taping mouth during sleep.

This isn’t new. James Nestor’s Breath talks about people doing this with good results.

TEXAS: More Harris County Graft To Democrats Uncovered. “Remember of three of Lina Hidalgo’s aides were indicted on corruption charges involving funneling Flu Manchu funding to a Democratic Party-linked political firm? Well, there’s more.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Energy Execs Tell Granholm Shuttered US Oil Refineries Won’t Restart.

RIP: Lucianne Goldberg, 1935-2022.

CONNECT THIS UP WITH A STARLINK-COMPATIBLE NEWSGATHERING DEVICE AND YOU DISINTERMEDIATE A LOT OF MEDIA: Elon Musk Confirms Plan to Add Youtube Clone to Twitter. And a lot of censors, but these days I’m mostly repeating myself.

I’M SKEPTICAL, BUT THAT WOULD BE GLORIOUS: Twitter’s Elon Problem Could Soon Become Apple’s Elon Problem Too.

FAKE NEWS: Newsweek Claims Ted Cruz Lied About Antifa Burning Down Cities.

Cruz’s comments came Monday on ABC’s The View, when he countered co-host Whoopi Goldberg’s attack on the right as violent: “Did I miss an entire year of Antifa riots where cities across this country were burning and police cars were being firebombed?”

Writer Tim Norton correctly noted Cruz was likely “referring to the protests that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020,” and the subsequent destruction of property in cities such as Minneapolis and then “Washington D.C., St Louis, Kansas City, Oregon, Atlanta, Seattle and New York City.”

He also correctly pointed out that “protests” (read: Antifa) “continued for 100 days” in Portland, Oregon, but things fell apart as he dismissed the demonstrations as “not typified by fires or arson” and therefore “[t]he majority of the Floyd protests” nationwide “took place between late May and early June 2020.”

Norton inadvertently undermined that claim by explaining “other violent, fiery clashes at other protests against police violence and racial injustice between 2020 and 2021” such as September 2020 rioting in Louisville, Kentucky and Brooklyn Center, Minnesota in April 2021.

The whiplash continued as he insisted Cruz was “significantly stretching the truth, even if taken figuratively” even though “many businesses were damaged or destroyed as a result of arson” because “Antifa is not a formalized group or association” and Black Lives Matter inspired global calls to action for racial justice. Really.

In other words, Antifa isn’t real and BLM protests made people feel special, so Cruz was…lying?

* * * * * * * *

Let’s unpack this schizophrenic gobbledygook. First, it was interesting Norton said Antifa wasn’t real seeing as how Newsweek tweeted this on November 2, 2020: “Antifa plans wave of demonstrations on streets as U.S. election polls close.”

And on April 24, 2021, Newsweek itself posted an article with the title: “Antifa Activists Vow to Keep Fighting—Even as ‘Terrorists’”.

At the beginning of 2009, Newsweek claimed, “We Are All Socialists Now.” Live look at the magazine dismissing Cruz’s statement:

THERE HE GOES AGAIN: Democrat U.S. Senator Under Federal Investigation.

THE GOP IS NOW A MULTIRACIAL COALITION OF SMALL BUSINESS AND WORKING CLASS VOTERS. THE DEMS ARE THE PARTY OF RICH WHITE PEOPLE AND THEIR CLIENTS. USA Today poll: GOP getting 40% of the Hispanic vote and 21% of the Black vote.

Don’t let these polls change what you’re doing over the next couple of weeks. If you care about this election you should be donating and volunteering.

THAT’LL BE NOPE.

EVEN JIMMY CARTER SAID AN ATTACK ON A U.S. SATELLITE WOULD BE TREATED AS AN ACT OF WAR: Russia threatens Western satellites.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW. Dow goes nuclear: chemical firm will install reactors at US chemicals complex.

And so planet-friendly. Yay, Dow!

ELECTRICITY DOESN’T COME FROM THE WALL? ‘Zero Emissions’ From Electric Vehicles? Here’s Why That Claim Has Zero Basis.

Car and energy experts, however, say there is no such thing as a zero-emissions vehicle: For now and the foreseeable future, the energy required to manufacture and power electric cars will leave a sizable carbon footprint. In some cases hybrids can be cleaner alternatives in states that depend on coal to generate electricity, and some suggest that it may be too rash to write off all internal combustion vehicles just yet.

“I have a friend who drives a Kia he’s had for about 15 years,” said Ashley Nunes, a research fellow at Harvard Law School. “He called me and said, ‘Hey, I’m thinking of buying a Tesla. What do you think?’”

“I said, ‘If you care about the environment, keep the Kia,’” Nunes said.

Nothing new here for Instapundit readers, but it’s nice to see some small amount of sense coming out of Harvard.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: PA Senate Candidate Reminds Everyone That ‘Fetterman’ Is The Name Of The Doctor Who Created Him, Not His Actual Name.

VITAMIN D UPDATE: Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Death, New Study Finds. “Vitamin D deficiency increases mortality risk and raising levels even slightly could decrease the risk, researchers examining data from the UK Biobank have found.”

My advice: Increase your levels more than slightly.

IT’S CCP SPYWARE, SHUT IT DOWN: Democrat Senator Admits ‘Trump Was Right’ About TikTok.

THEY NEVER WILL BE MISSED, THEY NEVER WILL BE MISSED: CNN expects layoffs and budget cuts by the end of the year.

OF COURSE: PayPal Has Reinstated Its $2,500 Fine for ‘misinformation.’

THEY MUST BE EXPECTING A SERIOUS SHELLACKING: Another Democrat Talking Head Equates Voting for Economic Issues With the End of Democracy.

Remember, when millions of ordinary people vote contrary to the wishes of a privileged few, they’re subverting democracy.

HMM: Enforcing the Coming Affirmative Action Bans: A Modest Proposal. I hope the Supreme Court really does nuke Grutter and Bakke and enforce the constitutional and statutory bans on racial discrimination.

READER FAVORITE: Instant Read Meat Thermometer. #CommissionEarned

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Major Fuel Supplier On “Code Red” As Diesel Crisis Hits Southeast. “Diesel supplies are very scarce across the Northeast and in the Southeast. Supplies are at the lowest seasonal level for this time of year, and the US only has 25 days left of the industrial fuel in storage. The crisis gripping the diesel market appears to be getting out of hand as one fuel supply logistics company initiated emergency protocols this week.”

DON’T GET COCKY: Leftist Think Tank’s Poll: Blake Masters and Mark Kelly Are Tied.

IT’S NOT THE RECESSION, IT’S ZUCK SPENDING $10 BILLION A YEAR BUILDING A VR ‘METAVERSE’ NOBODY WANTS WHILE HIS MONEYMAKER, FACEBOOK, FLOUNDERS: Meta Stock Crash Steepens As Facebook Parent Grapples With Recession Fears.

DEMOCRATS’ COVID DENIALISM:

Clearly the worm has turned if Democrats in competitive races are running away from their own policies.

Well, I have a reminder for them. Not only did they pound the “deplorables” into the ground with mandates, censorship, school closures lasting up to a year, and economic sanctions for failing to comply–vast numbers of Democrats wanted the COVID fascists to do even more. The madness was real, the harm extensive, and the real threat to our democracy was laid bare by oppressive Democrat policies.

Every time you hear a Democrat politician bumble around denying the extremism of the Left on COVID, think about a poll taken just 9 months back–in January of this year to be precise.

The Heartland Institute commissioned a poll from Rasmussen Reports on attitudes regarding COVID mitigation policies, and the results were both startling and terrifying. Confirming what we all suspected at the time, Democrats in large numbers care little about freedom and even less about their fellow citizens who disagree with them. I remember reading the poll at the time and being appalled, and I thought about it again as candidates such as Christine Whitmer have begun doing an about face on COVID mitigations.

Here are some findings from that poll. Once you are done you will question what kind of country many Democrats want to live in. . . . Unsurprisingly, the people most likely to support harsh punishments were strong Biden supporters.

Remember, this is not April of 2020, when we knew little about COVID and people were scared to death (by the CDC) that we were facing the return of the Black Death. This is from earlier this year.

Read the whole thing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Democrats’ Homestretch Flailing Is Both Pathetic and Hilarious. “Even Democrat candidates who haven’t had a bad week so far are still saddled with a village idiot of a president who thinks airplane seat legroom is racist and his spokesditz who is even more nonsensical than he is.”

DAVID BERNSTEIN: Re-reading Justice Thurgood Marshall’s Opinion in Bakke.

Civil rights hero Thurgood Marshall wrote an outraged dissent, in which he summed up his reasoning as follows: “In light of the sorry history of discrimination and its devastating impact on the lives of Negroes, bringing the Negro into the mainstream of American life should be a state interest of the highest order. To fail to do so is to ensure that America will forever remain a divided society.” Many have found Marshall’s dissent, especially his exposition of the historical discrimination against black Americans and its continuing effects, to be compelling.

In re-reading the opinion when researching my new book on racial classifications, though, I noticed something interesting. Marshall refers to “Negroes” and “the Negro” many times in his opinion, but never references any other minority group. What’s interesting about that is that the medical school’s quota program at issue in Bakke had the following results, according to an appendix to Powell’s opinion: From “1971 through 1974, the special program resulted in the admission of 21 black students, 30 Mexican-Americans, and 12 Asians, for a total of 63 minority students.” In other words, only one-third of the students admitted under the minority quota program were African Americans.

So, even if we agreed with every word of Justice Marshall’s opinion, he not only failed to explain why racial quotas were appropriate for Asian and Mexican Americans (the “Hispanic” classification not yet in existence when the litigation commenced), he never even mentions the other groups. As the four-justice opinion on the other side notes, “The inclusion of [Asians] is especially curious in light of the substantial numbers of Asians admitted through the regular admissions process.” That opinion also notes that the university was unable to explain “its selection of only the four favored groups—Negroes, Mexican-Americans, American Indians, and Asians—for preferential treatment,” as opposed to the myriad other ethnic groups it could have included.

Forty-four years later, much of the discourse around affirmative action preferences still assumes that the only admissions preferences, or at least the only ones that matter, are those for African Americans. Today’s op-ed in the New York Times by Justin Driver is a case in point. This is true even though Hispanic Americans outnumber black Americans by about a 4-3 ratio, even greater if you exclude black immigrants and their children.

Given that the driving force behind affirmative action was and pretty clearly continues to be the felt need to redress the effects of long-term discrimination and worse against African Americans, I wonder if we would have been better off if Powell, instead of adopting the diversity rationale, had adopted Marshall’s opinion, but still held the UC Davis quota program unconstitutional to the extent it included Mexicans and Asians. Voluntary adoption of quotas for African Americans would have the advantages of transparency, serving the main rationale for affirmative action to begin with, avoiding the dishonesty and lack of transparency that comes along with the diversity rationale, and also not encouraging the growth of DEI bureaucracies that bring a specific and generally counter-productive ideology with them.

Affirmative action is all about virtue-signaling, not about helping actual disadvantaged people.

I recommend Bernstein’s book, which — as you can see if you click through — I blurbed.

I THINK I COULD HANDLE IT:

The replies are on fire:

IT COULD HAVE BEEN THE U.S.: ‘We will be the supplier…’ Saudi Arabia Indicates Readiness To Supply More Oil If Energy Situation Deteriorates.

MICHAEL BARONE: This campaign’s missing issues: Foreign policy and economic redistribution.

What issues are the candidates and the parties not talking about? It’s worth asking, because sometimes these issues turn out to be important.

I don’t remember any candidates talking about Islamic terrorism in the midterm elections of 1998 or about the risk of investing in mortgage-backed securities in 2006. Going back a ways, I can’t recall much discussion about how to win or de-escalate the Vietnam War in 1966 or to cope with rising inflation in 1970.

So what aren’t politicians talking about this year?

Some stuff that matters.

WHO WOULD: Not even Democrats like Democratic governance.