WHAT COULD GO WRONG? “As doubts continue to linger over the efficacy of Obamacare, Colorado voters will decide whether they want to create the nation’s first functioning single-payer system on Tuesday. Formally named the ‘Colorado Creation of ColoradoCare System Initiative’ (Amendment 69 for short), the constitutional amendment aims to replace current insurance regulations with a government program that pays for all healthcare costs.”

Because it all worked so well in postwar-England.

INTERESTING. THIS WAS ALSO THE FIRST TIME I POCKETED MY STICKER.  SO DID EVERYONE ELSE: Trust and Misgivings.

Added: Cedar says her site crashed with all the traffic from the installanche, but this backup link should work.

CAR CULTURE: Judge Sides With Hobby Mechanic, Shuts Down Neighbors Trying to Close His Garage. “So there you have it. Williams’ garage isn’t a nuisance, his neighbors aren’t allowed to enforce perceived code violations with a lawsuit, and he can go back to working on cars. His legal fees have also been covered by a wildly successful GoFundMe campaign.”

SO I FINISHED MICHAEL WILLIAMSON’S ANGELEYES. It was pretty good, but not as good as the other books in the series. Not sure what was missing, exactly, but it just didn’t fully jell.

WITH DNC IN MIND, CITY BANS CARRYING URINE, FECES: “How 2016 ends at Politico World HQ in Rosslyn: a cracked pipe in a 9th floor bathroom leaking sewage onto the 8th floor where newsroom is.”

Metaphor alert!

IS THE U.S. ON THE “RIGHT TRACK OR THE WRONG TRACK”?: It’s a pollster question. Democrat whines to the contrary, ObamaCare is collapsing. It’s definitely “wrong track.” My last Observer essay documented that legislation’s miserable history.

Which leads to a point worth making this election day.

The language in the ObamaCare law was intentionally obscure.

James Madison in Federalist 62 warned us that “incoherent” legislation was wrong track:

“…It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood…”

But “incoherent” served the Obama Administration’s political aims. My essay quotes one of the liars who helped concoct the law, the infamous Jonathan Gruber and links to an article at The Hill which which documents Gruber’s pride in falsehood:

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.” Gruber made the comment while discussing how the law was “written in a tortured way” to avoid a bad score from the Congressional Budget Office. He suggested that voters would have rejected ObamaCare if the penalties for going without health insurance were interpreted as taxes, either by budget analysts or the public.

ObamaCare was a fraud from the get-go. Even after passing it no one really knows what’s in it. Donald Trump knows at least half of America is totally fed up with this kind of political fraud.

GOOD NEWS: Leaked NASA paper shows the ‘impossible’ EM Drive really does work.

The results of NASA’s tests on the ‘impossible’ EM Drive have been leaked, and they reveal that the controversial propulsion system really does work, and is capable of generating impressive thrust in a vacuum, even after error measurements have been accounted for.

The EM Drive has made headlines over the past year, because it offers the incredible possibility of a fuel-free propulsion system that could potentially get us to Mars in just 70 days. But there’s one major problem: according to the current laws of physics, it shouldn’t work.

The issue is the fact that the EM Drive defies Newton’s third law, which states that everything must have an equal and opposite reaction. So, according to Newton and our current understanding of the world around us, for a system to produce propulsion, it has to push something out the other way (in space, that’s usually combusted rocket fuel).

But the EM Drive works without any fuel or propellants at all. It works by simply bouncing microwave photons back and forth inside a cone-shaped closed metal cavity. That motion causes the ‘pointy end’ of the EM Drive to generate thrust, and propel the drive in the opposite direction.

Despite years of testing and debate, the drive remains controversial. The bottom line is that, on paper, it shouldn’t work, according to the laws of physics. And yet, in test after test, the EM Drive just keeps on working.

I hope this pans out. I certainly want it to. Reactionless thrusters that can be powered by electricity would open up the solar system.

IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO GET STARTED: Washington Free Beacon Special Video Report: How to Impeach Hillary Clinton.

MICHAEL WALSH AT PJ MEDIA’S ELECTION DAY DRUNKBLOG:

Remember: at this point, the national polling margins are unimportant. We’re at the “50 separate elections” stage now. Either candidate can pile up a huge margin in a given state, but every vote past a simple majority is a “wasted” vote, in the Electoral College sense.

But each state doesn’t vote in a vacuum. Western Pennsylvania is closer in spirit to eastern Ohio than it is to Philadelphia. What happens in Michigan can bleed across the Upper Peninsula into Wisconsin and the Minnesote iron range. Arizona and New Mexico co-exist in a strange southwest equilibrium. Over the past several cycles, plucky little New Hampshire has been increasingly squeezed between BenandJerry Vermont and the “Massholes” fleeing their nutty state but bringing their voting habits with them.

In short, watch the dominoes, not the national polls. If they start to fall, we could be looking at a landslide — in either direction.

We’ll know soon. Meanwhile, I’m stone-cold sober, as I’m about to go teach Administrative Law, and teaching about judicial review of Unilateral Administrative Orders under CERCLA isn’t enhanced by alcohol. At least, I don’t think it is. To be fair, I’ve never tried it that way . . .

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is the Plague Still Alive in Musty 14th-Century Tomes?

AND OUTRIGHT LIES FOR THE WIN: University Course Seeks To Link Trump To Slavery.  And I must admit I’m mad at Trump on this one too.  He had a time machine and he never told us.

MICHAEL SAINATO: DNC emails expose DNC-media-Cinton campaign collusion. No kidding. Pan to Sarah Hoyt’s shocked face.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN FILES LAWSUIT IN NEVADA: Late last week a Nevada county extended early voting hours. According to the report the action was legal. The Trump campaign objected — Nevada is Dirty Harry Reid country. The Trump campaign wants to be able to separate early voting ballots from election day ballots. Forget the fat lady and the opera. This election may not be over after it’s over.

NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF 5G: Millimeter Waves Travel More Than 10 Kilometers in Rural Virginia 5G Experiment.

ESPECIALLY APPROPRIATE TODAY: Starting Strength Podcast: All About Whiskey.

Hey, there’s a reason why PJ Media is having an all-day drunkblog today.

I WANT TO BELIEVE: An Open Letter to the Candidates.

USING CARBON 14 TO DETERMINE THE AGE OF ILLEGAL IVORY: And DNA to help determine where the elephant lived. Chemical analysis indicates poachers produce most of the illegal ivory on the market. A number of people thought crooked governments were selling from old ivory stocks.

Thure Cerling at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and his colleagues measured the decay of carbon-14 isotopes in 231 ivory tusks, confiscated between 2002 and 2014, to determine when the elephants they were taken from had died…By combining their measurements with earlier analysis of the tusks’ DNA, the researchers were able to tell where the poached elephants had lived.

The carbon-14 sleuthing

“…puts to rest a speculation which has been at the back of everyone’s mind,” says George Wittemyer, a conservation ecologist and elephant specialist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Some had wondered whether corrupt governments were contributing to the ivory trade by selling off old ivory, bit by bit, from stockpiles built up over years.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Build a Go-Cart With Simple Tools and No Welder.

PRAGER UNIVERSITY: Prof. Nicholas Johnson On “Common Sense” Gun Control.

KINKY FRIEDMAN ON THE ELECTION: ‘We Don’t Know Who the Hero Is Until the Ship Sinks.’

The Texas Democrats have been nearly wandering in the desert forever. It’s not a matter of left or right. There are a lot of liberal pussies in Austin. I don’t think people like Sam Rayburn, Barbara Jordan, hell, probably even Ann Richards, that whole bunch … I don’t think they’d recognize it [the Democratic Party].

It’s a matter of, all they do is spend their time calling people racists. In doing so, they create a lot of racists.

Plus:

If you look at the great ones, Mother Teresa, Winston Churchill, FDR, they were all aristocratic freaks with very little interest in others. They’re very much like Trump. I mean, particularly Churchill. He was a polo player in India and an adult butterfly collector. They liked to hang out at the country club, Rachel. They were very privileged people.

When they got into office, Churchill and FDR, they did something that Obama was never able to do: change. The agent of change, Obama, could not change himself. He remained a fixed point in a changing world. It’s just too bad; it’s who he is. He’s not the smartest guy in the room. He may be the glibbest. He may be the most facile. I believe, if he’s concerned about a legacy, I believe he can pretty well forget that.

All I’m saying is, we don’t know who the hero is until the ship sinks. Or when the plane is crashing. You don’t know who’s going to run back and save somebody, or who’s going to dress up like a woman so he can hide in a lifeboat.

And: “I’m old enough to sleep alone now. My shrink, Willie Nelson, has advised me not to get married under any circumstances. He says that would be a very big mistake.” Read the whole thing.

ACE DETECTIVE JOE BIDEN SWINGS INTO ACTION! Biden: Democrats Must Figure Out ‘What’s Eating at’ Trump Supporters.

I wonder if Biden is also pondering why do they want to put black people in chains? Or was that just that neo-confederate segregationist Bull* Romney?

* I know. But I doubt Joe does.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1279: Another Federal Court Says The IRS Continues To Harass Conservative Groups.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Nato puts 300,000 ground troops on ‘high alert’ as tensions with Russia mount. The 1980s called, yada yada.

UPDATE: So I just read this piece about Trump and nukes and got a sudden premonition: If Hillary’s elected, she’ll wind up nuking somebody. Maybe it’s just echoes of the Goldwater joke. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Flashback: ‘No First Use’ Nuclear Policy Proposal Assailed by U.S. Cabinet Officials, Allies; Obama’s disarmament agenda hits significant roadblock on opposition from Kerry, Carter and Moniz.

A proposal under consideration at the White House to reverse decades of U.S. nuclear policy by declaring a “No First Use” protocol for nuclear weapons has run into opposition from top cabinet officials and U.S. allies.

The opposition, from Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, as well as allies in Europe and Asia, leaves President Barack Obama with few ambitious options to enhance his nuclear disarmament agenda before leaving office, unless he wants to override the dissent.

The possibility of a “No First Use” declaration—which would see the U.S. explicitly rule out a first strike with a nuclear weapon in any conflict—met resistance at a National Security Council meeting in July, where the Obama administration reviewed possible nuclear disarmament initiatives it could roll out before the end of the president’s term.

During the discussions, Mr. Kerry cited concerns raised by U.S. allies that rely on the American nuclear triad for their security, according to people familiar with the talks. The U.K., France, Japan and South Korea have expressed reservations about a “No First Use” declaration, people familiar with their positions said. Germany has also raised concerns, one of the people said.

Mr. Carter raised objections to the “No First Use” declaration on the grounds that it risked provoking insecurity about the U.S. deterrent among allies, some of which then could pursue their own nuclear programs in response, according to the people familiar with the discussions. North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and Russia’s actions in Europe have also complicated any change to the U.S. nuclear posture for the Pentagon.

Mr. Moniz, who weighs in on nuclear issues for the Department of Energy, also expressed opposition to a “No First Use” posture, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

As people note in the comments, what Trump has actually said on nukes, as opposed to what people are saying about him, tracks US policy pretty closely.

MARY KATHARINE HAM: 7 Reasons We Should Just Give America To Chip And Joanna Gaines After Tuesday. “Whoever wins, we’re gonna have a fixer-upper on our hands.”