HE WON THREE SUPER BOWLS AND FLEW A-10 COMBAT MISSIONS IN THE PERSIAN GULF: So what does former Dallas Cowboys all-pro Chad Hennings do for an encore? How about becoming one of the most famous advocates for religious freedom the mainstream media never told you about?

Hennings has hooked up with the First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based law firm that specializes in First Amendment litigation in defense of religious freedom for all, and makes the case today in LifeZette for the importance of two upcoming cases.

CHICAGO: KANYE FOR MAYOR?

ALWAYS NICE TO SEE PEOPLE WHO ARE CAPABLE OF LEARNING: Co-Founder Of March For Our Lives Cameron Kasky Explains The Mistakes He’s Made & Why He Left March For Our Lives.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP: McDonald’s customers who hung fake poster in restaurant for 51 days get $25G checks from fast-food chain.

Jehv Maravilla, 21, and his friend Christian Toledo, 25, placed the sign in the Pearland McDonald’s after noticing a lack of Asian representation in the marketing materials.

“We were eating McDonald’s one day and we looked around and saw there were posters around that didn’t have any Asians,” Maravilla told KHOU 11. “They had other races but no Asians so we felt like it was our duty to put ourselves up there.”

The pair concocted a scheme that involved buying McDonald’s uniforms from goodwill and creating fake badges to have their sign placed in the store.

Though the friends were worried about “getting in trouble,” the sign remained in the store unnoticed for 51 days – until the pair posted about their prank on Twitter, where it went viral.

Only in America.

SHARK, JUMPED: Kavanaugh nomination moves into bizarro male-bashing territory.

AIR POWER: The mangled myths dogging the joint strike fighter.

The jets have proved very effective in the US Red Flag exercise—the most rigorous air combat contest held in peacetime—which pits forces from the US and allies such as Australia against teams trained to perform as the ‘enemy’ and equipped as much as possible to fight using the tactics of a potential adversary. F-35s achieved kill ratios of over 20 to 1. That’s an impressive empirical proof of capability and performance.

The US company that builds the JSF, Lockheed Martin Corporation, flew Australian journalists, myself included, to its plants in Fort Worth, Texas, and Orlando, Florida, to examine the project. The information I gathered through that trip, including from US Air Force personnel, is helpful in understanding the actual status of the jets and the production program.

So, on to some of the claims.

Are JSF pilots voting with their feet?

No. US Air Force pilots across all aircraft types are being recruited by airlines that can pay more than the US government, but JSF pilots aren’t unique in this situation. The pattern of competitive recruitment from airlines recurs as economic conditions change.

JSF pilots I have spoken to say the stealthy, multi-purpose fifth-generation jet is easy to fly, revolutionary in its capabilities, and very popular with those operating it.

I can attest it’s also very poplar with those not operating it, if the pilots I’ve spoken to still flying F-16s are anything to go by.

FORMER TENNESSEE GOVERNOR WINFIELD DUNN: Phil Bredesen was independent as governor; he won’t be as senator.

The reason is simple: Phil Bredesen is used to having more independence. As governor, he was an executive. He chose his team. In the Senate, the team chooses you.

In the Senate, Bredesen would be low on the totem pole, following the lead of national Democrats like Schumer, who Bredesen would choose to be the Democratic Majority Leader, as well as liberal elites like Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren, New Jersey’s Cory Booker, and California’s Kamala Harris.

He claims he would be an independent voice for Tennessee, but that’s a lot easier said than done. Even those who choose to put the Independent “I” next to their names have to pick a side.

Just look at current Senators Bernie Sanders and Angus King, both of whom would call themselves Independents yet caucus with the Democrats and vote along the party line almost every single time.

Phil Bredesen was popular when he served as governor. But what we need to understand is that Washington is a different beast. In Washington, Phil would be beholden to Chuck Schumer.

How do I know this? Just look at other Democratic Senators who come from conservative states. Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp, Jon Tester — they all tried to convince their constituents that they would be an independent, moderate voice they could count on to represent their values.

We have more examples in Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both former governors from our neighboring state of Virginia. They were elected to the Senate on the premise that they would continue the moderate form of governing they claimed to adopt as governor. But they quickly realized that wouldn’t be possible in the Senate.

When it came down to the votes that mattered most, none of them was allowed to go up against Chuck Schumer and the national Democrats.

The same would happen with Bredesen.

Seems plausible. On the other hand, there’s this: Bredesen backs Senate vote if Kavanaugh accuser won’t appear.

Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen said Wednesday that the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault “has a very credible story.” But he said the Judiciary Committee should consider proceeding with a vote if she does not testify under oath.

“She has put herself out there,” Bredesen said of Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her while they were both in high school. “If she decided at this point to not do something, I guess the committee has to go ahead and say, ‘Well, we were willing to listen, but if she’s not willing to talk, we need to go forward.’”

But, of course, he’s saying this pre-election.

BECAUSE IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THE WOMAN: Dianne Feinstein Got Exactly What She Wanted.

YOU’RE ALLOWED A LOT OF CALORIES WHEN YOU’RE 6’8″, WEIGH 300 LBS., AND WORK OUT DAILY: How does ‘burger connoisseur’ Glenn Jacobs, Knox County’s new mayor, stay in shape?

Yesterday, I ran into Knox County’s former Mayor, Tim Burchett, in a local diner. He was lunching with a 94-year-old WWII veteran. We chatted a bit about my grandfather, who after fighting across Europe got put on a troopship for Japan and found out that the war was over while in the Pacific waiting to invade. Seems that everybody there back then was pretty happy about the atomic bomb. Burchett, who’s now running for Congress, said the people at Oak Ridge during World War II don’t get enough credit, and he’s right.

ANDREW MALCOLM: What’s really behind Obama’s stealth midterm campaign?

To be candid, Democrats really have no one else of political stature to help. Obama paid no attention to developing a farm team. He chose a non-threatening partner in Joe Biden, who’s nearly 20 years older. Bill Clinton picked a contemporary vice president and partner in Al Gore, who’s just two years younger, setting him up for possible succession.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is out as a current campaigner. The threat of her grabbing back the speaker’s gavel come January, blocking a GOP agenda and launching impeachment proceedings is a major target of numerous GOP campaigns. Democrats can’t send the 78-year-old anywhere but fundraisers with rich loyalists.

The Clintons may seek paid speaking invites, though who’d want their advice after so thoroughly botching the 2016 campaign that hung there for the taking?

Rep. Maxine Waters of California is a guaranteed media magnet, but giving her a podium is like waving a loaded gun in a crowded room. And she only talks Trump impeachment, which the Democratic Party desperately wants to hush until post-election for fear of motivating Republicans to vote.

Perhaps it’s a field of the too-old, the too-weak, and the too-radical because Obama prefers it that way.

JIM TREACHER: ‘Impossible to Fire’ State Dept. Bureaucrat Admits Working for Socialist Group on Gov’t Time.

THE ASSAULT CASE THE PRESS DOESN’T WANT TO COVER: Drip…Keith…Drip…Ellison…Drip…Drip….

NOW THAT’S A STRONG, COURAGEOUS WOMAN: DC McAllister Speaks About Threats Against Her for Anti-Abortion Tweet.

Meanwhile, Cristina King Miranda, who “courageously” came out yesterday in support of classmate Christine Blasey Ford on Twitter yesterday before deleting her supportive tweet, has since deleted her entire Twitter account. I suspect she did so after being unable to dodge questions about how the alleged attack “was spoken about for days afterwords in school,” despite Ford supposedly telling no one about it until her therapist in 2012.

TAMARA KEEL: Range Review: Glock 26 Gen 5.

NOT THAT LONG AGO: On this day in 1893, Charles and Frank Duryea road-tested the first American-made, gasoline-powered automobile on a stretch of road located in Springfield, Massachusetts.

(Others sometimes credit John William Lambert’s 1891 3-wheel Buckeye Gasoline Buggy with being America’s first, but because he never sold one–and because it was a %#* tricycle–Lambert tends not to get the same attention.)

Alas, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company never really made it big.  In part this may have been because the brothers had a falling out with each other. And in part it was because Ford had a better idea.

IF HE’S ELECTED, WOULD PHIL BREDESEN BE THE DEMOCRATS’ JEFF FLAKE OR JOHN MCCAIN? Bredesen backs Senate vote if Kavanaugh accuser won’t appear.

Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen said Wednesday that the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault “has a very credible story.” But he said the Judiciary Committee should consider proceeding with a vote if she does not testify under oath.

“She has put herself out there,” Bredesen said of Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her while they were both in high school. “If she decided at this point to not do something, I guess the committee has to go ahead and say, ‘Well, we were willing to listen, but if she’s not willing to talk, we need to go forward.’”

Of course, McCain and Flake were good at sounding tough in election years. . . .

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STACY MCCAIN: Democrats And The Rape Of Justice.

JOHN KASS ON KAVANAUGH: Senator Feinstein, Have You No Sense Of Decency?

Spoiler: No.

THE DEMOCRATS’ WAR ON WOMEN: DC McAllister Speaks About Threats Against Her for Anti-Abortion Tweet.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

● Shot: “Let me say for the billionth time: Reporters don’t root for a side. Period.”

— Chris Cillizza of CNN, October 16, 2016.

● Chaser: Juanita Broaddrick says CNN’s Chris Cillizza blocked her on Twitter … over this?

—Twitchy, today.

OPEN THREAD. Did anything happen today?

KURT SCHLICHTER: LIBERALS ATTACK PRIVATE LIVES WHEN THEY CAN’T ATTACK POLICIES (VIDEO).

WHAT EARTH LIFE COULD LIVE ON MARS? “It is also possible that microbes from Earth have accidentally contaminated the planet during past space exploration missions, and not implausible that they now reside in the lake.” How would they get there?