FOR THE FALLEN: In the UK, November 11 serves the same purpose as Memorial Day does here. The Royal British Legion has compiled a website, Everyone Remembered, for people to have the chance to post a tribute or remembrance to those who fell in British service in the First World War. As Daniel Hannan says,

This is a truly humbling initiative. Try typing in your surname – or, if you’re male, your full name – count the matches, and feel the tragedy grab you in the stomach. https://t.co/uEfc4sCRDx

— Daniel Hannan (@DanielJHannan) November 10, 2017

Even if you had no British relatives, please consider remembering someone.

HEATHER WILHELM: Gun Control and Magical Thinking.

Based on existing federal gun laws, Kelley’s record made him officially ineligible to buy firearms. But the Air Force failed to submit his records into the federal background-check database, allowing him to purchase the guns used in this weekend’s rampage.

Folks, that’s an unacceptable “oops.” It also isn’t an isolated incident of negligence. This week, questions have arisen about the military’s reporting system when it comes to domestic-violence cases. Meanwhile, in an interview after the shooting, Texas senator Ted Cruz noted that in 2010 alone, “48,000 felons and fugitives lied and illegally tried to purchase guns. [The government] prosecuted only 44 of them.”

Washington must learn to enforce the gun laws they already have before we let them have any new ones.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Report: Majority of Americans say colleges aren’t properly teaching ‘the value of free speech.’

I WOULD CERTAINLY HOPE SO: Excessively large laser is key to creating gamma ray sources.

One small correction: It is impossible for a laser to be excessively large.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Yale removes white men’s portraits from hall to promote diversity – then says it’s temporary.

AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases, Updated Hourly.

Plus, new Kindle Daily Deals.

And, today’s Digital Deals.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Moore Allegations, RUSSIA Update and Much, Much More.

RUSSIAGATE: Judicial Watch Sues Department of Justice for Communications Relating to ‘Russian Lawyer’ Immigration Parole.

Fox News recently reported on a meeting between Fusion GPS and Veselnitskaya:

The co-founder of Fusion GPS, the firm behind the unverified Trump dossier, met with [Veselnitskaya] before and after a key meeting she had last year with Trump’s son, Fox News has learned. The contacts shed new light on how closely tied the firm was to Russian interests, at a time when it was financing research to discredit then-candidate Donald Trump.

The opposition research firm has faced renewed scrutiny after litigation revealed that the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid for that research. Congressional Republicans have since questioned whether that politically financed research contributed to the FBI’s investigation of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – making Fusion’s 2016 contacts with Russian interests all the more relevant.

“The ‘Russian lawyer’ who finagled a meeting with Donald Trump, Jr. evidently wasn’t supposed to be in the country,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We want to know what the Obama Justice Department knew and when it knew about what Ms. Veselniskava was up to.”

“No good” is the easy answer, but I do wish Congress were investigating more effectively since we can no longer trust our counterintelligence outfit at the FBI.

HMM: 19 Reasons This “Survival” Story Smells Fishy.

Those two are named Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava, and their story has been everywhere recently. Here’s their account of what happened, in brief:

They set off from Hawaii in May of this year, bound for Tahiti. They were caught in a storm that both ruined their engine and rendered their mast and sails useless. They were unable to contact help. They drifted for five months, living off of dry food and a handheld watermaker (takes the salt out of seawater so you can drink it) until they were rescued by a fishing boat and, eventually, the Navy.

Now here’s how much of their story makes sense:

They left Hawaii in May. They were rescued five months later by the Navy.

That’s it. That’s the only portion of their story that has even a shred of credibility to it. Now, I’m not going to speculate as to their motives yet, but I will point out that the world of open-water sailing is an obscure one to most people. I am one of a small minority to have spent a lot of time sailing on the open ocean, out of sight of land for months at a time. So I don’t blame journalists for not catching these things at first sight. But that’s why I’m here to explain them to you.

They did appear awfully healthy in the rescue pictures, but I attributed that to the amount of food they claimed to have had on board.

BEWARE THE PIOUS: Our moral and intellectual betters in the news industry have some explaining to do, in light of the most recent American Society of News Editors‘ study:

In 2017, minorities comprised 16.55 percent of employees reported by all newsrooms in our survey, compared to 16.94 percent in 2016. Among daily newspapers, about 16.31 percent of employees were racial minorities (compared to 16.65 percent in 2016), and 24.3 percent of employees at online-only news websites were minorities (compared to 23.3 percent in 2016). The percent of journalists of color was still greatest at the largest news organizations. For example, at newspapers with daily circulations of 500,000 and above, nearly a quarter (23.4 percent) of the average workforce was made up of minorities (compared to 23.7 percent in 2016). The average newsroom workforce at all 661 legacy and digital sites was about 11.2 percent minority (up from 10.6 percent in 2016).

Of course, it can be carried to the opposite extreme.

CHANGE: House GOP Bill Reduces Number Of Colleges Impacted By Proposed 1.4% Endowment Tax From 140 To 70.

DO TELL: Watchdog Group Appears to Exaggerate Standing Claims in Trump Suit. “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington may have misled the court in an effort to get its case against the president to trial.”

NO EXCUSE: Ohio Man Who Invoked ‘Islamophobia’ Defense for Double Murder Gets Life in Prison.

GOVERNMENT SNAFU: Colorado Springs gun store owner says Texas gunman passed 2 background checks.

FOR THE SAME REASON PONZI SCHEMES WON’T STOP: IT’S AN EFFECTIVE CON THAT ZEROES IN ON HUMAN WEAKNESSES. Why Won’t The Nightmare Dream Of Communism Die? A century of Communism achieved four main results: poverty, oppression, war, and mass death. So why does anybody still think collectivism is ‘idealistic’?

Ponzi schemes capitalize on greed. Communism capitalizes on envy, which is why it’s largely sustained by intellectuals, in whose personalities envy tends to be a particularly powerful component.

SECURITY THEATER: TSA fails most tests in latest undercover operation at US airports.

When ABC News asked the source if the failure rate was 80 percent, the response was, “You are in the ballpark.”

In a public hearing after a private classified briefing to the House Committee on Homeland Security, members of Congress called the failures by the Transportation Security Administration disturbing.

Rep. Mike Rogers went as far as to tell TSA Administrator David Pekoske, “This agency that you run is broken badly, and it needs your attention.”

It isn’t broken. TSA is doing exactly what it was designed to do: Create the illusion that Washington is Doing Something.