MY USA TODAY COLUMN: The Trouble With Twitter. “If you set out to design a platform that would poison America’s discourse and its politics, you’d be hard pressed to come up with something more destructive than Twitter.”

WELL, WE CAN’T HAVE THAT: Rutgers Profs Outraged After Illegal Arrested for DUI, ‘Reckless Endangerment.’

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: No, You Don’t Need to Handcuff Yourself to Twitter HQ to #OwnTheLibs.

LT (JG) GEORGE H. W. BUSH: A photo taken in 1944 of Navy pilot Lt. j.g. George H. W. Bush in his Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber (bumped from yesterday). The former president and combat veteran led a full life. May he rest in peace.

MARINES AND SAILORS IN NORWAY: Marines and sailors put tire chains to a Light Armored Vehicle as part of Exercise Trident Juncture 18 in Norway, Nov. 2, 2018.

PEAK GRAUNIAD REACHED: The Wizard of Oz is a grotesque predictor of Trump’s America.

With or without syncing it up to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: AAUP Investigates Vermont Law School’s Tenure Revocation From 14 Of 19 Faculty.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END? Qatar Quitting OPEC to Focus on Exports of Liquefied Natural Gas.

Speaking to reporters Monday in Doha, the country’s minister of state for energy affairs, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, made the surprise announcement, saying that the world’s largest exporter of LNG plans to increase its exports from 77 million tons of gas per year to 110 million tons.

“In light of such efforts and plans, and in our pursuit to strengthen Qatar’s position as a reliable and trustworthy energy supplier across the globe, we had to take steps to review Qatar’s role and contributions on the international energy scene,” al-Kaabi said.

Qatar also wants to raise its oil production from 4.8 million barrels a day to 6.5 million barrels, he said.

The tiny, energy-rich Arab nation is locked in a diplomatic dispute with Saudi Arabia, which dominates OPEC, but al-Kaabi said that the move to leave the organization was not driven by politics.

The decision seems more likely driven by economics, and the worldwide oil glut due to the explosion of American oil production.

In other words: Thanks, Obama!

WELL, YES, THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT: “Diversity” Rests on Racialist Assumptions.

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY: Robert Mueller’s Plan.

No prosecutor builds a case the way Mueller is going about it. What prosecutor says, “Here’s our witness line-up: Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Alex van der Zwaan, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen. And what is it that they have in common, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? Bingo! They’re all convicted liars.”?

For a prosecutor, like any trial lawyer, what the jury thinks is at least as important as what the law says. If the most memorable thing the jury takes into the deliberation room is that no one should believe a word your witnesses say, you are not going to convict the lowliest grifter, much less the president of the United States of America.

As a prosecutor, you build a case by having your cooperating accomplice witnesses plead guilty to the big scheme you are trying to pin on the main culprit. After all, what makes these witnesses accomplices, literally, is that they were participants in the main culprit’s crime. That’s the scheme you’re trying to prove. So, on guilty-plea day, the cooperator comes into court and admits guilt to the same conspiracy on which you are trying to nail the lead defendant.

That gets you 90 percent of the way home.

But if your intention is to smear by implication, rather than build an actual criminal case, you’d go about it the way Mueller is.

AN IDEA SO CRAZY IT JUST MIGHT WORK: Plot twist? UW Madison promotes inclusion through a shared identity. “The University of Wisconsin Madison recently launched a new campaign aimed at unifying the student body by recognizing their shared identity as students.”

What if we did something similar at the national level? Based on our shared identity as Americans? We could tell people that “when your heart is filled with patriotism, there’s no room for bigotry.” Nah, that’s crazy talk.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: The Trouble With Twitter. “If you set out to design a platform that would poison America’s discourse and its politics, you’d be hard pressed to come up with something more destructive than Twitter.”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: RIP 41, Paris is Burning, Comey to Testify and Much, Much More. “The former president (41) passed away at home, peacefully on Friday at a respectable 94-years-old. The media is gushing over GHWB, just gushing over him because, you know he was good one. A good Republican not like the one we have now who is a barbarian and a pig. But back in the day, the media hated Bush 1 too, just like they hated W and Romney and McCain when they threatened democrat power.”

What a strange new respect.

MAYBE THEY COULD TRY LOOSENING ECONOMIC CONTROLS AND GIVING PEOPLE LESS TO PROTEST: France considers ‘all options’ to quell violent protests.

Nah:

Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet told reporters at a Sunday press conference those involved in Saturday’s protests would face “a very firm response from the criminal justice system.” Some will be brought up for trial as soon as Monday, according to the minister.

Asked about the possibility of a state of emergency, Belloubet said, “I am not sure we have reached that stage quite yet. I think there are other options.”

French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency meeting with top officials on Sunday just hours after returning from the G20 summit in Argentina. In a statement, Macron paid tribute to law enforcement and rescue teams who “showed unrelenting bravery throughout the day and evening.”

Macron also “stressed the importance of judicial follow-up so that none of the acts committed remains unpunished,” the statement added.

Tensions rising

Rising fuel prices are largely attributed to a leap in the wholesale price of oil worldwide.

Um…

BECAUSE MOSQUITOES ARE AWFUL? Why Google Is Killing Off Fresno’s Mosquitoes.

SENIOR ISIS LEADER INVOLVED IN KILLING OF FORMER US ARMY RANGER KILLED IN DRONE STRIKE IN SYRIA, COALITION SAYS. Former U.S. Army Ranger Peter Kassig, “a 26-year-old aid worker and U.S. citizen, was captured in Syria in October 2013 as he was providing aid to Syrians who were fleeing the country’s civil war. His friends say he converted to Islam in captivity and took the first name Abdul-Rahman. ISIS released graphic video in 2014 showing he was beheaded, and U.S. officials confirmed the footage was authentic,” Fox News reports, adding, “The statement continued, ‘Coalition airstrikes continue to disrupt ISIS command and control on the battlefield as we remove key figures from their ranks.’”

Faster, please.™

SORRY IF YOU’VE BEEN SEEING FAKE ADS. WE’RE WORKING TO BLOCK THEM. Here’s the story.

You may have noticed over the last couple of weeks that some of your favorite websites — including PJ Media and Instapundit — have been plagued by rogue pop-up ads and redirects to spammy sites. Hundreds of millions of web sessions have been hijacked by a cyber-criminal group called the ScamCub, with millions of users being directed to gift card and adult website scams.

Typically, users click on a link at a trusted website and are instantly redirected to a site that displays a pop-up message announcing that the individual has won a gift card or other prize. The scammers do this by placing malicious code inside online ad units and hijacking U.S.-based iOS users to redirect them bogus sites. ScamClub then attempts to collect users’ personal and financial data.

“In this particular case,” ZDNet reported, “the code used by the ScamClub group hijacked a user’s browsing session from a legitimate site, where the ad was showing, and redirected victims through a long chain of temporary websites, a redirection chain that eventually ended up on a website pushing an adult-themed site or a gift card scam.” . . . While we haven’t yet completely resolved the issue, our ad folks do recommend that users clear their browsing history and cookies to try and limit the impact. Please know that we take these problems very seriously.

It’s happened to me several times. Spoiler: There’s no actual free iPhone.

PUTTING OUT FIRE WITH GASOLINE: Hyperinflationary Venezuela announces 150 percent minimum wage hike. “Maduro said in a televised broadcast that the new monthly salary would be 4,500 bolivars. Citizens routinely complain they cannot afford basic items despite a 60-fold minimum wage increase in August.”

Related: Venezuela Devalues Currency by More Than 40% in Dicom Auction.

A country which barely produces anything domestically any longer just made imports that much more expensive — assuming you can actually buy dollars at the official exchange rate, which seems (ahem) unlikely.

Except for the nomenklatura, I assume.

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THERE IS NOTHING MORE EXHILIRATING THAN BEING SHOT AT WITHOUT EFFECT:

Meanwhile, NeverTrumpers are fantasizing about putting Trump supporters on trial. But remember, they’re the sane, moderate, patriotic ones.

CHANGE: TheBlaze and CRTV Merge to Create Conservative Media Powerhouse.

UPDATE: Um. “CRTV issued the following correction to the Hollywood Reporter story:Mark Levin and Glenn Beck did not merge. CRTV and TheBlaze merged. Mr. Levin does not hold management authority in CRTV. The decision for the merger was made by the principals of CRTV and TheBlaze. Also, the headquarters will not be in Dallas, TX.”

Other than that, the story was correct.

BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID. Joel Kotkin: The Soul Of A New Political Machine.

Thirty-five years ago Tracy Kidder electrified readers with his “Soul of a New Machine,” which detailed the development of a minicomputer. Today we may be seeing the emergence of another machine, a political variety that could turn the country toward a permanent one-party state.

This evolution has its roots in California, where a combination of Silicon Valley technology, changing demographics, control of media, culture and academia have worked to all but eliminate the once-fearsome state GOP. For all intents and purposes, the California Republican Party has ceased to exist.

But this is not, as some conservatives contend, a case simply of California lunacy. Several once historically conservative states — Colorado, Arizona, Nevada — have been turning ever-bluer in recent elections. The party now barely is able to hold onto seats in places such as Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida, while the Midwest, the region that elected Donald Trump, seems to be shifting back to its bluer past.

Well, that’s a lot to make out of midterms, where incumbent presidents usually lose. But it’s absolutely true that what the Democrats want is a permanent one-party state on the lines of California.

AMERICA’S LONGEST WAR: Top Taliban Commander Killed by U.S. Airstrike in Afghanistan.

U.S. Army Col. David Butler, spokesman for U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan, said Abdul Manan, the Taliban’s shadow governor in southern Helmand province, was killed late Saturday in an attack by an “unmanned aircraft.” In a statement, the Taliban also confirmed his death.

Mr. Manan’s killing is the biggest loss for the Taliban since 2016 when the group’s leader, Akhtar Mansour, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in western Pakistan. The killing of Mr. Mansour sank the prospects for peace talks at the time, as the Taliban resented the loss of its chief.

Mr. Manan’s death comes as the U.S. steps up the air war in Afghanistan in an attempt to bolster its sway in embryonic efforts with the insurgency to get peace negotiations under way to end the 17-year war.

“Pack up and go” doesn’t seem so bad after 17 years.