TIM CAVANAUGH: Back On Earth, Actual 99% Doing Better Than Ever.

FIREARMS NEWS: Afghan Gun Locker: Battlefield Ingenuity, and a Weapon’s Longevity. “Someone, somewhere is wondering where in hell their bicycle went.”

RECIPE: Nutella and banana wontons. Michael S. Malone, who sends the link, comments: “If you added bacon, you’d probably have something you could call an ‘Asian Elvis.'”

MICHAEL WALSH: Whipsaw Whiplash.

STUDENT LOAN FAIL: The IBR Student Loan Repayment Scheme is a Disaster. And this part does not come as much of a shock: “IBR rewards current politicians while sticking future ones with the bill.”

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Nationwide Concealed Carry Passes Out Of House Judiciary Committee.

THE HILL: Even Though They Control The Senate, Dems Increasingly Speaking of “Republican Congress.” “President Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill are increasingly referring to the Congress as ‘Republican’ even though their party controls one-half of the unpopular institution. Obama and his allies have started to deploy the phrase ‘Republican Congress’ in what some experts see as a clear attempt to gain a political advantage.”

REPORT: The schoolgirl who survived the Holocaust by fooling the Nazis. One of Helen’s great-aunts got herself released by claiming not to be Jewish, with added credibility from her red hair and blue eyes.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: 7 reasons why Obama is wrong on income inequality.

MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS: Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown To Seek Sweeping Pension Cuts. “Gov. Jerry Brown will propose sweeping rollbacks to public employee pension benefits in California, including raising the retirement age to 67 for new employees who are not public safety workers and requiring state and local employees to pay more toward their retirement and health care, according to a draft of the plan obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.”

ELON MUSK: SpaceX Could Dump NASA If Rules Don’t Change.

ACCOUNTABILITY: TSA removes security screener for note telling passenger to ‘get your freak on.’

A SMARTPHONE-BASED weightloss system.

FAKE HELP: The Atlantic: Obama’s Student-Loan Order Saves the Average Grad Less Than $10 a Month.

POLITICO: Solyndra investigation heats up with DOE interviews.

INTERVIEW: Bill Whittle on everything.

TRANSPARENCY: DOJ Proposes Letting Government Deny Existence of Sensitive Documents. “A longtime internal policy that allowed Justice Department officials to deny the existence of sensitive information could become the law of the land — in effect a license to lie — if a newly proposed rule becomes federal regulation in the coming weeks. The proposed rule directs federal law enforcement agencies, after personnel have determined that documents are too delicate to be released, to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests ‘as if the excluded records did not exist.'”

This is disgraceful.

TIM CARNEY: Despite ‘ban,’ fat-cat lobbyists bankroll Obama.

NOVEMBER 17TH: A Pro-Gun Rally On The Virginia Tech Campus.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): The Economic Agony Of Today’s Twenty-Somethings.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Poll: Support for Handgun Bans at Record Low. “For the first time, Gallup finds greater opposition to than support for a ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles, 53% to 43%. In the initial asking of this question in 1996, the numbers were nearly reversed, with 57% for and 42% against an assault rifle ban.” Obviously, the gun-rights community’s message of tolerance has been changing minds and reducing the hate and fear.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: What Successful Fiscal Adjustments Look Like.

CRUMBLING: Jim Matheson is first Dem to back CLASS repeal.

Related: Obamacare collapsing en route to Supreme Court.

A funny thing happened along the way to the Democrats’ health care utopia. The stubbornly inescapable and elegantly simple Stein’s Law, named for the late economist Herbert Stein, kicked in with a vengeance: “Things that can’t go on forever, don’t.” Collecting 10 years of revenues for every five years of expenses can’t go on forever, and now even HHS admits there is “no viable path forward” for the CLASS Act. Despite HHS’ fatal prognosis for the program, it wants to keep the program on the books anyway so at some point it can attempt a resurrection. Classless.

Stein’s Law will be the epitaph for this particular decade, I think.

Related: Why Washington will collapse.

CHINA: Signs Of A Slowdown Are Obvious.

WAS THE RAID ON OCCUPY OAKLAND REALLY NECESSARY? Of course. Only Republican regimes use unnecessary violence against protesters. Everyone knows that.