HARRY REID OPENED A DOOR THAT CANNOT BE CLOSED. THIS IS ONE OF THE THINGS LIKELY TO COME THROUGH IT: Goodbye, Blue Slips?

HOLLYWOOD ENDING: Harvey Weinstein Has Destroyed Hollywood — Now What?, asks Roger Simon.

FUNGIBLE: Tim Kaine Says Harvey Weinstein’s Donations to Him Have Already Been Spent.

CHEATERS: OPEC Oil Production Rose in September Despite Deal to Limit Output.

Output by members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries rose by 0.27%, to 32.75 million barrels a day in September, compared with the month prior. The increase was driven by higher production in Libya, Nigeria, Iraq and Gabon, according to OPEC’s closely watched monthly oil market report.

OPEC and other major crude producers like Russia agreed nearly a year ago to cap production at around 1.8 million barrels a day below peak October 2016 levels, with the aim of alleviating oversupply and boosting prices. But the deal has been undermined in part by a surge in production in Libya and Nigeria, the two member countries not included in the deal because their oil industries had been damaged by civil unrest.

The news came a day after Saudi Arabia—OPEC’s largest member—said it would export 7% less crude by sea in November, compared with the same period last year. The move appeared to reassure investors of the cartel’s commitment to draining global oil stocks, giving prices a bounce in trading Tuesday. Brent crude, the global benchmark, closed up 1.5%, at $56.61 a barrel.

Saudi Arabia has indicated repeatedly in recent weeks that it is open to an extension of the production cut agreement, which expires in March, potentially through the end of 2018.

Even a small uptick in prices encourages the more-desperate OPEC members like Libya more reason to cheat — and brings more US shale production back online, too.

IT REALLY ENDED IN 2003 WHEN THEY BACKSTABBED US ON IRAQ: The Downfall of the American-Turkish Alliance.

Americans generally take it for granted that they can travel where they want, when they want. In the “Global Passport Power Rank,” U.S. passports are usually near the top, with visa-free or visa-on-arrival travel for virtually every country in the world. Only rogue states and American adversaries like Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and Syria pose much of a challenge for Americans looking to go abroad. But today, America’s NATO ally Turkey joins that list.

Well, Turkey’s looking a lot more like that list in other ways, too.

SHAMEFUL: How NBC ‘Killed’ Ronan Farrow’s Weinstein Exposé.

Addressing a controversy that has been percolating for the past several days in the media ecosystem since The New York Times published its own Weinstein exposé—including questions about whether NBC executives caved to the well-connected Weinstein and his formidable lawyers, Charles Harder, Lisa Bloom, and David Boies—Maddow brought it to a boiling point by telling Farrow: “NBC says that the story wasn’t publishable, that it wasn’t ready to go at the time that you brought it to them.”

Farrow fired back: “I walked into the door at The New Yorker with an explosively reportable piece that should have been public earlier. And immediately, obviously, The New Yorker recognized that. And it is not accurate to say that it was not reportable. In fact, there were multiple determinations that it was reportable at NBC.”

Farrow’s blunt claim highlighted an uncomfortable debate among NBC News insiders, and beyond, concerning the quality and status of his investigative reporting and the reasons why a respected television network would kill a sensational scoop about a famous, influential, politically wired, and undeniably newsworthy figure like Harvey Weinstein.

Rumors about the iconic producer’s alleged misconduct with women have fueled journalistic curiosity for decades. But the 65-year-old Weinstein somehow managed to keep his alleged misdeeds from public exposure—until now.

“Somehow.”

RANDY BARNETT: Teaching the Canon and the Anti-canon of constitutional law.

AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases, updated hourly.

Plus, Kindle Daily Deals.

And, Today’s Digital Deals.

STOP THEM BEFORE THEY PAINT AGAIN: Destroying the Neighborhood to Save It.  When whites leave for the suburbs, it’s racist “white flight.” When they return, it’s racist too, even if they’re fellow lefties whose art promotes the correct social-justice themes. In the finest tradition of the Cultural Revolution, activists are driving art galleries out of the Boyle Heights district near downtown Los Angeles because they might actually improve the Latino neighborhood. They’ve have been harassing the owners with protests, racial taunts, boycotts and vandalism. One gallery was spray-painted with the lovely inclusive message of “Fuck White Art.” Latino artists at the galleries are denounced as “coconuts” — brown on the outside, white on the inside.

In City Journal, Kay Hymowitz reports on the horrible crime of converting a vacant building, formerly a piano warehouse, into a gallery and performance space named 356 Mission:

The artists and gallery owners suddenly found themselves in the same enemy camp as destroyer billionaires like Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, or even President Trump. (One protest flyer read: “Donald Trump is a Developer and so is 356 Mission.”) For the anti-gentrification protestors, art galleries are by definition capitalist enterprises, and thus enemies of “the community.”

One of the major local activist groups calls itself The Boyle Heights Alliance Against Artwashing and Displacement (BHAAD). “Artwashing” refers to artists, arts organizations, and their corporate sponsors who, unwittingly or not, rebrand and upscale—i.e., gentrify—low-income neighborhoods. (The related term“pinkwashing” refers to gay newcomers to those neighborhoods, who cause wine bars and dog groomers to come snooping for real estate.)  BHAAAD was not interested in compromise with their presumptive political comrades. “[A]ll new art galleries [should] immediately leave Boyle Heights,” the group announced on Facebook.“Those buildings should be utilized by our community members the ways we best see fit which may be converting them into emergency housing, shelters, or centers for job training.”

So it’s basically a bunch of thugs making a real-estate grab.

STEPHEN KRUISER: Hollywood Isn’t Going to Deal With Weinstein, It’s Going to Erase Him.

Everybody knows you never go full Polanski.

CHANGE: Treasury Rolls Back Eight Tax Regulations.

PERHAPS BERNIE SANDERS AND JANE O’MEARA WILL TAKE A SECOND HONEYMOON THERE: Kim Jong Un wants to turn his missile testing area into a billion-dollar tourist hotspot.

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Interest in sexual harassment was suppressed to protect Bill Clinton: Is that part of why Harvey Weinstein got away with his abuses? “My hypothesis is that liberals — including nearly everyone in the entertainment business — suppressed concern about sexual harassment to help Bill Clinton. Giving him cover gave cover to other powerful men, and the cause of women’s equality in the workplace was set back 20 years.”

SO IS IT FINALLY TIME TO REPEAL THE HOLLYWOOD TAX CUTS?

Related:

Well, if you’re Harvey Weinstein, or implicated in Harvey Weinstein’s misconduct, isn’t the rational thing to make the story bigger by leaking dirt on the other Hollywood bad actors? Then you’re just part of a bigger problem.

UPDATE: And it’s a MUCH bigger problem.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: IMF Says Venezuela’s Inflation Rate May Rise Beyond 2,300% in 2018.

The one thing centrally-planned economies never run out of is zeros.

YOUR MERE PRESENCE IS A MICROAGGRESSION: Oxford college bans ‘harmful’ Christian Union from freshers’ fair.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Weinstein, Vegas, NFL, Eminem and Much, Much More.

SO JUST IN THE LAST FEW DAYS, two major centers of the anti-Trump resistance, Hollywood and the NFL, have collapsed. Meanwhile, the Obama coal regulations are being canceled, and the Supreme Court handed him a victory on the travel ban.

And even the WaPo has noticed that Trump’s North Korea information war is working.

UPDATE: Harvey Weinstein has destroyed Hollywood. Now what?

THE END IS NIGH: Cook County Finance Committee repeals soda tax.

“Today the board exercised its collective will and set in motion a repeal of the sweetened beverage tax we approved last year,” Preckwinkle said. “As I outlined last week, it is up to the commissioners to choose our direction on revenue, and I respect their authority to do so.”

The tax has been controversial since its start last year when it was narrowly passed by the board after Board President Toni Preckwinkle cast the deciding vote after commissioners deadlocked on the measure.

The tide turned on the tax Friday, when a bipartisan deal to rescind the tax was announced last week. The tax will stay in effect through the end of the county’s fiscal year on Nov. 30.

With 15 votes, those in support of a repeal have more than enough support to override a Preckwinkle veto. That’s a major setback to Preckwinkle, who has argued that the tax was needed to avoid major cuts to the public health and safety sectors.
Dueling ad campaigns have argued that the tax is either an onerous burden on consumers that is hurting small businesses — or a way to provide desperately needed funds and promote healthy choices and combat child obesity.

The Can the Tax Coalition, a staunch opponent of the tax that receives money from the American Beverage Association, “applauded” the passage of the repeal.

I’m dumbstruck that Cook County repealed a tax, no matter how small or self-defeating.

OFT EVIL WILL SHALL EVIL MAR: By censoring Marsha Blackburn, Twitter supercharged her Senate campaign.

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE THEY SHUT THEMSELVES UP: Some of Trump’s biggest Hollywood critics remain silent about Harvey Weinstein.

Many in the Hollywood elite — arguably Trump’s most vocal foes — point to the president’s offensive past regarding women, including the infamous recording from his 2005 Access Hollywood appearance, as proof of his misogynistic tendencies and sexual predation. To be sure, Trump does not have anywhere approaching a good record on this front. Like others, I was (and still am) bothered by what we’ve learned about the president’s treatment of women.

However, some of the same individuals who have long railed against Trump’s behavior have not only been silent since the NYT article on Weinstein was published, but have been silent about his well-known behavior for years. Matt Damon, who according to the Times tried to tamp down an earlier report (which Damon denies), remains silent. Rose McGowan, who has appeared to indicated that she was assaulted by Weinstein, tweets “Ladies of Hollywood, your silence is deafening.” In fact, despite the few who have spoken out against Weinstein, most of Hollywood is staying mum.

This severely damages any shred of credibility they have when it comes to discussing Trump’s past indiscretions.

Indeed. Talk of Trump’s various indiscretions never amounted to much. But with Weinstein, once the dam cracked there came a deluge of accusations and allegations — so many and so serious that on Saturday his own lead counsel dropped him even before his own company could fire him.

And this seems apt:

There really is no end to the entertainment industry’s hypocrisy — nor to its power and desire to exploit.

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON at Emory Law School?

MODERN POLITICS: Trump Says He ‘Didn’t Undercut’ Tillerson by Challenging Secretary’s IQ.