PUT DOWN THE CHARDONNAY, GRANDMA: Hillary Brags That Bill Clinton ‘Didn’t Tweet About’ Challenges As President.

BERNIE SMILES: Socialists Saw 75 Percent Increase in U.S. Elected Officials on Nov. 7.

LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES: The house that sold for nearly $800,000 over asking price speaks to the inequity of California.

Dave Clark, a Keller Williams agent who’s been in the business for 30 years, said the house had only one owner prior to this year’s sale. A couple bought it brand new in 1963, raised two kids and held onto the house until recently, when the gentleman followed his wife in death and their son and daughter sold it.

“I think they paid around $25,000,” said Clark. “So it went up in value about 100 times.”

That’s astounding. But median incomes, unfortunately, have gone up only about 10 times over the same period.

Incomes at the top of the pay scale, meanwhile, have exploded. An op-ed in the L.A. Times last week said Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have more wealth than the bottom half of the country combined. The op-ed, by Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie, said today’s 400 richest Americans are 10 times richer than 1983’s richest people were, but median family income has declined in that time.

Weird that we’re in a populist moment.

ROLLING STONE BLAMES THEIR VICTIMS:

Rolling Stone is defending itself against a defamation lawsuit over a discredited article about a University of Virginia gang rape by arguing that members of a school fraternity knew about discrepancies in the woman’s claims weeks before the article was published and should have warned the magazine.

Lawyers for Rolling Stone argue in court documents that the fraternity and its members withheld that information from the magazine and its reporter, “at a time when disclosing such information would have prevented publication” of the woman’s allegations.

Ashe Schow of the Federalist tweets that Sabrina Erdely, the author of the now discredited article,  “gave them no details about the incident she wanted information for when she reached out to the fraternity.”

Brooklyn College’s K.C. Johnson tweets, “Suggestion that the burden was on the frat to disprove Jackie’s tale (rather than on Erdely to prove it) is quite remarkable.” He describes Rolling Stone’s response as an “Amazing [argument]…frat deliberately misled Erdely to make frat seem guilty (even as Erdely didn’t provide them w/details),” adding that their response “portrays frat as somehow involved in the magazine’s editorial process, as if it were shown a draft of Erdely’s article. (It wasn’t.)”

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BYRON YORK: How pundits got key part of Trump-Russia story all wrong.

Just think of the media as Democratic operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.™

SALENA ZITO: Why no one is talking about Trump’s game-changing deal.

Bad news travels fast. Good news, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to travel at all.

Last weekend in Beijing, as part of his 12-day trip to Asia, President Trump announced that the US and China had signed an $83.7 billion deal to create a number of petrochemical projects in West Virginia over the next 20 years.

If the agreement holds tight, it is an economic game changer for the state.

And yet, speaking to the locals here, you wouldn’t even know it had happened.

“I am surprised I heard nothing about it on the national news, nor in my local paper and newscasts,” said Jerald Stephens, 67, a West Virginia native and union rep, who has been a keen observer of local politics for as long as he can remember.

Weird, huh?

DISPATCHES FROM THE K-12 IMPLOSION: NYC’s high school equivalency program is a complete boondoggle.

Unexpectedly.

JOURNALISM:

AL FRANKEN’S 2008 VICTORY: When 1,099 felons vote in race won by 312 ballots.

Speaking of which, at Power Line, John Hinderaker asks: Did Leeann Tweeden’s Reticence Cost Norm Coleman His Senate Seat?

SHALL WE DANCE, AL FRANKEN? “I didn’t laugh. I kept waiting for a punchline, as though the ass grab was a setup. But it wasn’t a setup. Fondling the fanny was the whole point.”

See, the point Franken was making is that when you’re famous, they let you do it. It was a trenchant commentary on female responses, in comedic form.

You laugh, but the WaPo would totally publish this defense. And you know what, it wouldn’t be wrong:

After the show I introduced myself to Franken and Davis. It was a casual atmosphere on the ballroom floor after a gig in Nowhere, Montana; they were friendly and approachable. The discussion was about to tick up a notch when, surprise, the two girls (the fondlees, shall we say) approached. All smiles and giggles. All starry-eyed and excited. Again I metaphorically scratched my head.

They invited Franken and Davis to a party.

A small party in the town of Logan, some twenty miles away. I assumed it was a small party because at the time there were maybe four, maybe five houses in Logan. And I also assumed, judging from their starry eyes, that Franken and Davis would have thought they had a good chance of perfecting their Fanny Fondle routine that night. I would have thought that. I’d have bet money on it, if I had been the recipient of such gazes and smiles.

That Franken and his trenchant commentary.

THIS MUST BE PLAYING WELL IN MANHATTAN TODAY. Ross Douthat in the New York Times: What if Ken Starr Was Right?

Related: How Anita Hill betrayed feminism.

As Zhou Enlai never said, the outcome of the French Revolution? Too soon to tell.

WHY ARE DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGNS SUCH CESSPITS OF MISOGYNY AND SEXUAL PREDATION? Women On Clinton And Sanders Campaigns Allege Sexual Harassment.

I’M SO OLD, I CAN REMEMBER WHEN APPLE’S SLOGAN WAS “THINK DIFFERENT:” “Apple fires Diversity Chief for suggesting that intellectual diversity is important too. Wrongthink has no place in Silicon Valley.”

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F.H. BUCKLEY: No, Trump’s not a populist – he’s a breed all by himself.

LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Air Force to discuss ‘unusual and compelling urgency’ for new missile-warning satellites.

SHOULD’VE DONE IT IN CALIFORNIA, WHERE THEY’VE MADE THE LAW MORE “PROGRESSIVE:” UK man found guilty of knowingly spreading HIV: Daryll Rowe, 27, intentionally infected five men with HIV and attempted to infect five others, a U.K. court ruled.

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AL FRANKEN’S DEFENDERS ENTER THE “SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE WORN THAT SHORT SKIRT” PHASE. More victim-blaming: Leeann Tweeden didn’t wear glasses when touring with Al Franken, see?

Meanwhile, “The Establishment’s Howard Fineman Defends The Tongue In The Mouth Against Your Wishes.”

The media’s ability to pivot on a dime in the same week from throwing a dissipated Bill Clinton overboard and attacking Roy Moore to granting Franken a very ‘90s-era one free grope rule is amazing to watch. Decades of these sort of power politics by the left (see also: supporters of Kennedy, Ted) explain why many continue to circle the wagons around Moore. Or as Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics tweeted on Tuesday, “I don’t think you can underestimate the degree to which many conservatives have this attitude: (a) we fought a battle over whether character counts, and got our asses handed to us and (b) liberal leaders always circle the wagons around their guys, and ours always cave.”

HEH: As A Male Feminist, I Really Think I’d Absolutely Crush It If I Ever Had To Publicly Apologize For Sexual Misconduct.

Seriously. It would be an absolute slam dunk.

First off, I would immediately admit to the charges leveled against me. Whatever I was accused of doing, whether it was lewd comments, groping, public masturbation, coercing female employees into sex for promotions, or something even worse, I would own up to it because, as a progressive, I do not want to contribute to a culture that discredits women for speaking up. I read enough feminist think-pieces to know that it’s important to believe women, and in my apology, there wouldn’t be any half-assed claims about misconstruing signals or consent, no fucking way. I would own that shit.

Also, I wouldn’t wait until a Cosby-sized crowd of victims stepped forward. The moment one woman accused me of spiking her drink, boom, I’d post a full confession about what I did to her and also any other women I had traumatized. I would get the ball rolling on my public disgrace ASAP, without dilly-dallying until after a New York Times exposé forced my hand.

I would be held so goddamn accountable, you wouldn’t believe it. I’m seriously getting amped just thinking about it.

Sigh.

ROBERT TAFT HARDEST HIT: Ohio Democratic candidate for governor William O’Neill deletes Facebook post boasting of his sexual history.

A little too late for that, as the alternate headline is: “Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate about to get a harsh reminder that the Internet is forever.” The money shot of his boasts can be found here.

(Via Newsalert.)