TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1253.

IT’S 2016, MAN, ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN: Flashback: Actually, Libertarian Gary Johnson could win the presidency. In theory, Johnson doesn’t even have to carry a state. If enough electors defect to Johnson to deny either major candidate a majority, it goes to the House — and who knows how that might turn out. Given how unpopular both Trump and Hillary are with their own party’s voters, it’s not unimaginable that the House would turn to Johnson.

TWITCHY: CNN reporter walks back speculation that flash flood of Trump assault allegations was coordinated.

Didn’t take long to whip Dylan Byers back into line.

ANDREW KLAVAN ON THE MEDIA, THE NARRATIVE AND “THE GIRL ON THE TRUMP TRAIN:”

In this year’s race, however, there is nary a good guy in sight. A dishonest left-winger with authoritarian tendencies is running against Hillary Clinton, also a dishonest left-winger with authoritarian tendencies. On top of which, they both seem like absolutely dreadful human beings when they’re at home.

In one sense, this gives the media an advantage. This time, when they gang up unfairly on the Republican, at least they’re telling the truth.

But in another sense, the shabbiness of the candidates should give us some clarity. We know there are no heroes here, no saviors. He won’t make America great again; she won’t make us stronger together. So instead of paying attention to media distraction, we can just ask ourselves: what will these awful people do once they’re in office and how will that hurt or help our lives and our country?

Read the whole thing.

VIDEO: I, WHISKEY: THE HUMAN SPIRIT.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Russia completes delivery of S-300 air defense missiles to Iran.

BLUE MELTDOWN: California Pension Fund Threatens to Renege on its Promises for the First Time.

The problem for Loyalton, in other words, is just a more acute version of the problem besetting municipalities across the country: Namely, that state pension authorities have been assuming unrealistic discount rates and rates of return on their investments for decades. The purpose of this phony accounting is to conceal the massive shortfall in public pension funds that are often underfunded and consistently fail to meet overly optimistic investment targets. As long as the real numbers aren’t released, politicians, investors and public union bosses can look the other way. But the real value of obligations racked up over the years is finally becoming clear, and it stands to ruin fading municipalities that were roped into the system on false pretenses.

Walsh notes that “some see a test case taking shape for Loyalton and other cities with dwindling means.” There is simply no way for many small government entities in California to afford what the state pension fund says they owe. If Calpers follows through on its threat to cut off Loyalton’s retirees, then the fiction of “bulletproof” public pensions will be permanently undermined.

The crisis in Loyalton should come as an ear-grazing warning shot to states across the country that are concealing the true cost of their fiscal obligations. As the Ponzi scheme runs its course, the people who stand to lose most are retirees of modest means, not the union bosses in state capitals who demanded more and more benefits or the politicians who kicked the can down the road and pocketed the votes of citizens from whom they withheld the truth.

The fatcats always get theirs.

TO BE FAIR, THIS ELECTION STINKS ON ICE FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE: It Stinks to be Jewish During Election 2016.

BLUE STATE BLUES: N.J. took $1.4B from your phone bill for new 911 system but never delivered.

Rather than using the money for 911, lawmakers and governors have instead raided it time and again to balance the budget, leaving critical upgrades to the state’s most important public safety system on hold.

An NJ Advance Media analysis found that of the $1.37 billion the state has collected in 911 fees since 2004, only 15 percent, about $211 million, has been used to help pay for the 911 system.

Investment in the upgrade, known as NextGen 911, has trickled to a halt.

From 2005 to 2008, records show the state spent about $42 million on it. Since then, it has spent $71,652. In 2014, the most recent year available, it put just $9,141 of the $121 million it collected toward the upgrade.

“There are lives that have been lost because of this,” said Dominic Villecco, vice president for the New Jersey Wireless Association. “These funds are there to help save people’s lives.”

Why are Democrat-run states such cesspits of waste and lies?

MY FAVORITE PART ABOUT THE HILLARY CAMPAIGN IS ALL THE GENDER-RELATIONS HEALING: NYC pharmacy slaps male shoppers with a ‘man tax.’ I hope that someone will hit them with civil rights complaints for (1) discriminating against men; and (2) misgendering people who identify as women, but look and dress as men.

AUSTRALIA’S $200 MILLION EXPERIMENTAL GREENHOUSE: Australia doesn’t need to grow tomatoes in the desert — and the article makes that point. But a greenhouse using seawater, sunlight and coconut husks is an interesting concept.

2016, MAN: Hillary Clinton and Lena Dunham Discuss Lenny Kravitz’s ‘Stuff’ in a Locker Room Fashion.

WHEN INTERNET SHAMING GOES WRONG: “A woman in Melbourne, Australia was riding a bus when she noticed a young man walking up to other women and sticking his hand in their faces. This woman said the man sat near her and stared at him. She claimed the women he tried to interact with were visibly fearful. She wrote an expletive-laden Facebook post about the incident, calling the man a ‘low life,’ ‘creep,’ ‘loser’ and ‘festering turd of a human being.’ She did not know this man, but immediately jumped to conclusions about his motives. She even took a photo of the man (without his consent) and plastered it on Facebook, where her post received more than 80,000 likes and nearly 10,000 shares. The man she shamed is reportedly autistic, and likes giving people high fives.”

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BOB DYLAN WINS Nobel Prize in Literature.

WELL, THIS HEADLINE SHOULD MAKE THE WAR ON MEN GO TO DEFCON ONE: GENDERS DIVIDED IN THE US — IF ONLY MEN VOTED, DONALD TRUMP WOULD WIN BY A LANDSLIDE.

It’s probably for the best that Nora Ephron isn’t around to see this.

NEW YORK POST: Why Israel fears Obama’s last days.

Israel faces a unique window of danger from Nov. 9 to Jan. 20: What might President Obama do in his final days in office to slam the Jewish state?

Start with Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent flat refusal to promise a US veto on any upcoming anti-Israel resolution in the UN Security Council.

On Saturday, Haaretz reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Kerry he’s counting on Washington to stick to its policy of nixing anti-Israel resolutions. Kerry’s reply: The administration has yet to make a decision on the matter.

For Kerry to leave any doubt that America would shield Israel at the United Nations is bad enough. But concerns about what Team Obama might do go far beyond that.

Read the whole thing.

It’s also possible, likely even, that January 20 won’t mark the end of Obama’s mischief-making.

WAIT, WHAT? Rasmussen: Trump Takes Lead. I think I’ll wait for some more polls before drawing any conclusions here, but hey, this election is crazy enough that anything could happen.

TMZ: NBC EXECUTIVES HELD ONTO 2005 TRUMP TAPE TO HAVE MAXIMAL IMPACT ON ELECTION.

Earlier: Tale of the Trump Tape: NBC Has A Lot of Explaining to Do.

A CAMPAIGN BUILT ON HATRED AND DISDAIN: Clinton campaign mocks Catholics, Southerners, ‘needy Latinos’ in emails.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE, “RESET” EDITION: Russia, US move past Cold War to unpredictable confrontation.

WHAT IT TAKES TO GET THE WASHINGTON POST TO FACT-CHECK A RAPE VICTIM’S STORY:

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler took the time to sift through the 41-year-old case of Kathy Shelton, who said she was raped when she was 12 years old by a then-41-year-old man.

Ordinarily, I’d expect the Post to take Shelton’s claims at face value (and to be fair, Kessler does call her a rape victim, as her attacker, Thomas Taylor, agreed to a plea bargain). The Post would be accused of “victim-blaming” if it dared point out an accuser’s changing story, even if it ultimately seemed sympathetic to her.

But Shelton is different because she has told the press that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “took me through hell” and has appeared with GOP nominee Donald Trump.

This earns Shelton extra scrutiny. Kessler points out that she didn’t know until 2007 that Clinton was the defense attorney in her case, that she may or may not have been misquoted about harboring no ill will toward Clinton and that she said she had a psychiatric exam but court records say she didn’t.

These aren’t the “smoking gun” contradictions I would usually consider evidence of an untruthful accuser (and again, Kessler is not saying she is untruthful). Shelton could have hated a random, unnamed defense attorney until she found out it was Clinton, who by that point had become a household name. That would have been pretty devastating for a victim, to find out that a former first lady, U.S. senator and, at the time, presidential candidate was responsible for allowing your rapist to walk free.

In 2007, Shelton apparently told Glenn Thrush, who was then a reporter for Newsday, that she felt Clinton “was just doing her job” by representing Taylor. Seven years later, in 2014, she told the Daily Beast she was misquoted and that “Hillary Clinton took me through hell.” She could have been upset with an unnamed defense attorney, as I wrote above. Or she could have never thought about the other people involved in the case until she was shown an affidavit from Clinton claiming Shelton “is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and to engage in fantasizing” and “has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body.”

Clinton merely said in the affidavit that she had “been informed” of these things about Shelton, but offered no source or proof. Shelton told Thrush in 2007 that she was shocked by the affidavit because “it’s not true” and she had “never said anybody attacked my body before, never in my life.”

It’s always “believe the women” until they threaten the career of a Clinton. Then it’s “a little bit nutty, a little bit slutty” and “look what you get when you drag a $100 bill through a trailer park.” And the press plays right along because, well, think of them as Democratic operatives with bylines and you won’t go far wrong.

TOM BEVAN: Fear, Loathing and Turnout in Wisconsin.

Fear and loathing of the choice facing voters on Nov. 8 is one of the defining features of this election, and not just among swing voters. Nowhere is that more true than in Wisconsin, which stands alone as the only battleground state this year where Democrats and Republicans resoundingly rejected both current nominees in their party primaries earlier this year.
…
Wisconsin may be the birthplace of the Grand Old Party, but it hasn’t gone for a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan’s 49-state landslide win in 1984. George W. Bush nearly flipped the state red in 2000, losing to Al Gore by just 5,708 votes out of more than 2.5 million ballots cast. Bush almost did it again in 2004, losing to John Kerry by only 11,384 votes.

After those consecutive nail-biters, the state fell hard for Barack Obama in 2008, with Wisconsinites giving him a 14-point win, nearly double the margin by which he won election nationally. Ditto 2012, when the state gave Obama a seven-point victory while winning nationally by just less than four.

But things changed in Wisconsin in 2010, when a young, ambitious conservative Milwaukee County Executive named Scott Walker won the gubernatorial race.

If anyone knows how to work the GOP’s Wisconsin turnout machine, it’s Walker, who tweeted his nameless endorsement of Trump back in July.

SCHOLARS AND WRITERS for and against Trump.

IT’S PROBABLY NOTHING: RED ALERT — Get ready for a ‘severe fall’ in the stock market, HSBC says.

(Classical reference in headline.)