AT POPEHAT: GamerGate as Kulturkampf. “The entryism is of the usual type: people with blue/pink ideals join red / gray groups and try to achieve social status with in those groups, then use that social status to push for the admission of – and promotion of – more blue/pink members. Once the blue/pink members achieve a majority they then change the rules of admission to create a lock on their new conquest (in the case of academia, for example, even blue researchers in the Netherlands of all places, were shocked by how blatant the process was).”

ASHE SCHOW: Two White House statistics on campus sexual assault that can’t both be true. Maybe both can’t be true, but I’m putting my money on “neither.”

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Plus, take 20% off Fall Dresses. The more you take off a dress, the more I like it, generally.

IT’S LIKE WE WERE SOLD A FALSE NARRATIVE BY A MEDIA EAGER TO ENABLE DEMOCRATS’ ELECTION-YEAR RACE-BAITING OR SOMETHING: WaPo: Evidence supports officer’s account of shooting in Ferguson. “Because Wilson is white and Brown was black, the case has ignited intense debate over how police interact with African American men. But more than a half-dozen unnamed black witnesses have provided testimony to a St. Louis County grand jury that largely supports Wilson’s account of events of Aug. 9, according to several people familiar with the investigation who spoke with The Washington Post. Some of the physical evidence — including blood spatter analysis, shell casings and ballistics tests — also supports Wilson’s account of the shooting, The Post’s sources said, which cast Brown as an aggressor who threatened the officer’s life.”

Plus: “Seven or eight African American eyewitnesses have provided testimony consistent with Wilson’s account, but none of them have spoken publicly out of fear for their safety, The Washington Post’s sources said.” Sad when racial terror makes witnesses unwilling to come forward to serve justice.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, STORE SHELVES WOULD BE FLOODED WITH DANGEROUS, UNAPPROVED DRUGS. And they were right!

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Raise A Pig That Tastes Like Whiskey. “Whiskey-flavored bacon? Look, it was only a matter of time before someone tried this.”

Result, unsurprisingly: “It was hands down the best-tasting pig I’ve ever eaten.”

THOUGHTS ON HOW TO BE CREATIVE, from Isaac Asimov.

ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM: More Hispanics turning to Islam, majority women.

“When people see you with the hijab, they respect you first. Second, it’s the emotion you feel because you are different. You believe in something. It’s amazing.” Londono said.

“It defines their world on a clear grid of what’s permitted or ‘halal,’ and what’s prohibited which is ‘haram’. So they know exactly where they stand. So the Qur’an becomes this guidebook that tells you exactly what to wear, what to eat, how to wash, how to behave, when to pray.”

Like Karl Rove keeps telling us, these Latin immigrants are “natural social conservatives” all right. . . .

CHICKS DIG BAD BOYS: Why the Teenage Girls of Europe Are Joining ISIS.

JAMES O’KEEFE STRIKES AGAIN: The guerrilla filmmaker has exposed how voter fraud is both easy and condoned in Colorado.

When he raised the issue of filling out some of the unused ballots that are mailed to every household in the state this month, he was told by Meredith Hicks, the director of Work for Progress, a liberal group funded by Democratic Super PACS.: “That is not even like lying or something, if someone throws out a ballot, like if you want to fill it out you should do it.” She then brazenly offered O’Keefe, disguised as a middle-aged college instructor, a job with her group.

The video of O’Keefe’s encounters with other operatives is equally disturbing. He has a conversation with Greenpeace employee Christina Topping, and suggests he might have access to unused ballots from people who have recently moved out of college fraternity houses. “I mean it is putting the votes to good use,” she responds. “So really, truly, like yeah, that is awesome.”

Colorado secretary of state Scott Gessler, along with several county election clerks, have raised warning flags that a new state law that automatically mails a ballot to everyone is an engraved invitation to commit fraud. “Sending ballots to people who did not even ask for them or have moved out of state is asking for trouble” he told me. For example, little can stop someone who collects discarded ballots from trash cans, fills out the ballots, and mails them in. Election workers are supposed to compare signatures on registration records with signed ballots. But if a person has a “witness” who signs the ballot on the witness line, then the signatures do not have to match and the vote is counted.

Secretary of State Gessler had futile arguments with Democratic state legislators last year who insisted on ramming a bill through that mandated Colorado become the only state in the nation with both all-mail balloting and same-day registration.

The only reason for these changes is to enable fraud.

FROM THE CBC: Ottawa Parliament Hill Shootings; Live Updates.

UPDATE: Looks like Islamic terrorism: “Canada’s government is tracking today’s violence as a terrorist incident, and will reportedly continue treating it as such until evidence suggesting that it is not terrorism comes to light. That is in sharp contrast to how the Obama administration handles suspected terrorist attacks in the US. The FBI and other government agencies in the US default to something other than terrorism first, and still considers Nidal Hasan’s 2009 terrorist attack at Fort Hoot, Texas an incident of ‘workplace violence.'”

But stay tuned. Early reports are often unreliable.

WHO COULD HAVE IMAGINED THAT SOMETHING LIKE THIS WAS POSSIBLE? The incredible cost savings that are possible when patients can actually shop around.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 531.

WILL EBOLA BE GOOD FOR THE CDC?

This is not your grandfather’s public health system. Public health experts were, in a way, too successful; they beat back our infectious disease load to the point where most of us have never had anything more serious than Human papillomavirus or a bad case of the flu. This left them without that much to do. So they reinvented themselves as the overseers of everything that might make us unhealthy, from French Fries to work stress.

As with the steel mills, these problems are not necessarily amenable to the organizational tools used to tackle tuberculosis. The more the public and private health system are focused on these problems, the less optimized they will be for fighting the war against infectious disease. It is less surprising to find that they didn’t know how to respond to a novel infectious disease than it would have been to discover that they botched a new campaign against texting and driving.

Don’t get me wrong: Fighting infection is still one of the things that the public health infrastructure does, and though I hope it doesn’t come to that, I expect that our system will do a much better job next time. But the CDC did not botch the job because there’s something wrong with Barack Obama, or government, or the state of Texas, or private hospitals. They dropped the ball because the public health system no longer needs to work so many miracles, and consequently hasn’t had much practice.

Sadly, I think that’s about to change.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Oscar de la Renta’s Last Stand Against Slobs. “Once liberating, the drive toward informal attire, exemplified by hoodies in Silicon Valley, flip flops in Los Angeles, and sweaters on state visits, has become a new form of oppressive conformity. Dressing down is de rigueur. De la Renta stood against that trend. Now that he’s gone, perhaps there’s an opportunity for a transgressive young designer to do something really daring: Get us to dress up again.”

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USA TODAY EDITORIALIZES: Where’s Our NSA Reform? Despite outcry, government still collects your phone data. They’re happy to ride out an “outcry,” so long as none of them suffer any actual consequences.

HIGHER EDUCATION — JUST PART OF THE DEMOCRATS’ APPARAT? Public university violated federal election laws in promoting rally for Dem congressman, Bill Clinton, says lawyer. “The email, obtained by Campus Reform, went out to the entire student body urging them to sign up for the Wednesday event using their school-issued email addresses. It was ‘[p]aid for by the New York Democratic Committee,’ according to its signature, and also appears to violate the school’s long-standing policy against using resources to aid political candidates or causes, according to the school’s College Republican chapter.”

BYRON YORK: Why is there no surgeon general? Ask Democrats.

Some of President Obama’s most ardent supporters have accused Republicans of “politicizing” the Ebola crisis. It’s not a terribly serious accusation; a public health emergency requires the response of many government agencies, so how could politics not be involved? There’s nothing wrong with that.

One specific charge, though, deserves an answer. The Ebola scare has made many Americans aware that there is no U.S. surgeon general. (The post is filled by an acting official who is not in line for the job.)

There is, however, an Obama nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has not been confirmed by the Senate after more than a year of waiting. Why hasn’t Murthy won Senate approval in all that time?

To hear some of the president’s advocates tell it, it’s the Republicans’ fault. “GOP blocks Surgeon General nominee,” tweeted Eric Boehlert of the pro-Obama group Media Matters. “After blocking surgeon general nominee, Republican blames Obama for surgeon general vacancy,” added another pro-Obama group, ThinkProgress. . . .

In February, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted along party lines to send Murthy’s nomination to the full Senate. It has sat there ever since.

It would take just 51 of the Senate’s 55 Democrats to confirm Murthy. But that confirmation has not happened. “There is bipartisan opposition, so Sen. Reid hasn’t even tried to bring him to a vote,” says another senior Senate GOP aide.

By the way, Reid, who has never been shy about criticizing Republicans, is not among those publicly blaming the GOP for inaction on Murthy. A Reid spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

They don’t want to vote on an anti-gun zealot’s confirmation, at least not until after the elections.

CORNEL WEST NOT FEELING THE HOPE AND CHANGE: “You’ve got Wall Street criminals walking free, sipping tea at the White House.”

You know, I wonder if Cornel is considering a run in 2016.

SHOULDN’T HE STAY AT LEAST THREE FEET AWAY? Obama To Huddle With Ebola Czar.

ELECTION FRAUD: Obama Endorses ‘Chicago Way’ of Voting—Making the Rules Up As You Go. “Obama’s visit to Chicago shined a spotlight on the early voting process. . . . State lawmakers enacted a series of one-time changes to make early voting easier for this election only, leading some critics to contend the move was made for political reasons tied to the hotly contested governor race between Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn and Republican challenger Bruce Rauner. Among the changes, the two-week early voting period, which traditionally ends the Saturday before the Tuesday election, will this year continue through Sunday, Nov. 2, at some voting locations.”

THE HILL: Obama missteps boost GOP midterm chances.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE! (CONT’D): TTU student admits to making false statements about sexual assault. “A Texas Tech student may be facing legal and disciplinary penalties after making false statements about an alleged sexual assault at the Student Recreation Center last month. . . . The woman claimed that a man assaulted her in a locker room, but police say no crime occurred on the TTU campus and no rape occurred at the Rec Center. The case will now be referred to the Lubbock County District Attorney and the Office of Student Conduct for review.”