PAUL KRUGMAN ON ELECTION NIGHT: “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”

CNBC tonight: Stocks close at record highs to begin the fourth quarter; Dow jumps 152 points.

KURT SCHLICHTER: Our Broken Obama Military Can’t Even Manage to Toss Out Traitors.

It gives me no pleasure to have to wonder whether the Army I served in both in active and reserve status for close to 28 years is broken. And it’s not just the Army. The Marines and the Special Ops community, well, they seem to be holding on to the standards the rest have forgotten, but the Navy and the Air Force – they’re broken too. Our military – in terms of strategy, equipment, and leadership, is in crisis. American troops will die if we don’t fix it.

Hell, they already have.

We have a Navy that can’t even sail its few remaining ships without running into giant cargo vessels. I come from a Navy family. You should call my dad, the retired lieutenant commander, and ask him what he thinks about the Navy’s current level of seamanship. It will not be a happy chat.

It is, in fact, a disgrace. Our sailors, the precious young men and women we commissioned officers are charged with leading and protecting, are dying because our officer corps tolerates incompetence. One collision is an accident. Two is a lifestyle.

And yeah, they’ve fired some admirals, and that’s a good start, but the problem is a cultural rot, not just one ‘ed-up command. The Navy focused on things besides its mission – “to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas” – and in the last few months that misplaced focus has killed 17 sailors and taken two major vessels out of action in the Western Pacific at the very moment we are on the edge of war. . . .

And we have now reached the pinnacle of the military’s moral bankruptcy with the revelation that one Second Lieutenant Spenser Rapone is a communist. Not like a wannabe communist, not like a routine college-years liberal dummy, but a full-on, dictatorship-of-the-proletariat communist.

While at West Point.

Yeah, and the Academy knew. The chain of command knew what this guy was, because he told them (Army alumni have done the job the MSM, which probably sympathizes with this idiot, has failed to do, digging up plenty about him and putting it out on social media). But the Academy let this creep slide through anyway. They let a guy who unequivocally stated his hatred for this country get a security clearance.

Repairing the Obama-era rot in the military is going to be a difficult job.

IS LANGUAGE A LEARNED ACTIVITY? A review of Daniel Everett’s How Language Began.

WELL, THAT’S GOOD. Young Football Players Not Subject To Overuse Injuries. I wish I could say the same.

SARAH HOYT: The Las Vegas Shooting and the Attack of the Carrion Crows.

WHEN YOUR POST-LAS VEGAS GUN-CONTROL HOT TAKE IS SO DUMB EVEN THE WAPO’S FACT-CHECKER TAKES YOU DOWN PRONTO:

FLASHBACK: The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel.

TOOK THE HIV POST I HAD HERE DOWN. I SCHEDULED IT LAST NIGHT, BUT IT’S JUST TOO DEPRESSING FOR TODAY.

TWITCHY: WTAF?! Brother says Las Vegas shooter was multi-millionaire real estate investor.

Just a reminder that much of what we know so far is probably wrong.

IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT THE TRAGEDY I’M POLITICALLY EXPLOITING, YOU’LL ROLL OVER FOR MY POLICY POSITIONS THAT WOULDN’T HAVE PREVENTED IT: “They’re flashing the leaderboard on NBC news non-stop this morning. Brokaw, who has made gun-grabbing his beat, has been brought in to chew his lip and tut-tut.”

OH NO: Tom Petty Found Unconscious in Full Cardiac Arrest, Reportedly Pulled Off Life Support and Allowed to Die.

Such an amazing body of work, but for me it’s hard to top the essential weirdness of pairing Petty with producer/Eurythmics cofounder Dave Stewart for an uncharacteristically slinky little tune, reputedly about a 5am run-in with a possibly coked-up Stevie Nicks trying on Victorian clothes in the bedroom where Stewart had gone to pass out a couple hours before.

RIP, Tom, and thanks for so many great songs, albums, and performances.

UPDATE: This is from TMZ. “Sources tell us at 10:30 Monday morning a chaplain was called to Tom’s hospital room. We’re told the family has a do not resuscitate order on Tom. The singer is not expected to live throughout the day, but he’s still clinging to life. A report that the LAPD confirmed the singer’s death is inaccurate — the L.A. County Sheriff’s Dept. handled the emergency.”

LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Camille Paglia on Hugh Hefner’s Legacy, Trump’s Masculinity and Feminism’s Sex Phobia.

REVIEW: 2018 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Puerto Rico has big problems, but President Trump isn’t one of them.

HMM: ISIS Persists in Vegas Claim, Dubs Shooter ‘Abu Abdul Bar al-Amriki.’

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Why I Let My Teens Have Sex At Home.

FLASHBACK: The 8 Worst Mass Murderers in American History.

Of course, when it comes to really running up the totals, nobody can beat a socialist. Mao, Stalin, and Hitler are still the Big Three of history’s mass murderers. We can count their victims, not merely in the tens, but in the tens of millions.

SOCIAL JUSTICE MEDIA: Facebook Blocks Chinese Billionaire Who Tells Tales of Corruption.