TAR. FEATHERS. Government Cameras Hidden on Private Property? Welcome to Open Fields.

Seated at his kitchen table, finishing off the remains of a Saturday breakfast, Hunter Hollingsworth’s world was rocked by footsteps on his front porch and pounding at the door, punctuated by an aggressive order: “Open up or we’ll kick the door down.”

Surrounded on all sides of his house, and the driveway blocked, Hollingsworth was the target of approximately 10 federal and state wildlife officials packing pistols, shotguns and rifles. And what was Hollingsworth’s crime? Drugs, armed robbery, assault, money laundering? Not quite.

Months prior, in 2018, the Tennessee landowner removed a game camera secretly strapped to a tree on his private land by wildlife officials in order to monitor his activity without apparent sanction or probable cause. Repeat: Hollingsworth’s residence was searched by U.S. government and state officials, dressed to the nines in assault gear, seeking to regain possession of a trail camera—the precise camera they had surreptitiously placed on his private acreage after sneaking onto his property at night, loading the camera with active SD and SIM cards, and zip-tying the device roughly 10’ high up a tree—all without a warrant.

This is a physical trespass, and any claim that the “open fields” doctrine should apply here is absurd.

THE NEW YORK TIMES IS SHOCKED — SHOCKED! — THAT THE NYPD ARE NOW PHONING IT IN: 6 Are Shot in Brooklyn as N.Y.C.’s Summer of Violence Spills Into Fall. Shootings that plagued the city for most of the summer have not abated, and some city leaders question whether the police have backed off enforcement.

Flashback: New York City Proves You Don’t Have to Defund the Police, You Can Just Demoralize Them.

And between the New York Times and Mayor Bane, that has to be one demoralized police squad.

Or perhaps thanks to Mayor Bane, the police now have new priorities: Wow: Black Lives Matter protests are OK, but watch this cop harass Jews in a private residence.

MATERIAL SUCCESS/RELATIONAL FAILURE ON A GLOBAL SCALE: If that sounds like a prescription for civilizational failure, it is. Dr. Patrick Fagan of MARRI looks at the social science data in an around-the-world assessment.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Jeffrey Toobin Proves Hating Trump Means You Can Do No Wrong.

How do you think the women on this particular conference call feel? I’m not talking about the Eek, a mouse! moment; I’m talking about knowing Toobin was masturbating with your live image up on his computer screen.

How would that make you feel?

How would it make you feel if that was your daughter or wife?

I know I’d want to knock his block off.

I’m not here to call for Toobin’s firing. But I know I’d be fired for such a thing.

I also know that if Toobin were Sean Hannity or Donald Trump or anyone on the right, all the oh-so lofty principles expressed above would go right out the window. Because there are no principles at work here. Wagon-circling the indefensible is not principled, and you never saw me defending Bill O’Reilly or Roger Ailes.

As far as the mockery, I believe in shame. Shame is a good thing in a circumstance like this one. Society is better off and so are individuals if they fear being shamed for something like this.

The sad truth is that if you are not a member of America’s degenerate elite, you are a second-class citizen in this country who will lose your job for wearing an Obama mask. But if you are a member of the elite, you are allowed to lie, commit violence, and even get caught charming the cobra during a work meeting, and the fault and shame will all be laid at the feet of those appalled by a grown man who would do something so reckless and, yes, sick.

As Iowahawk tweeted, “the main difference between working in journalism and working at Panda Express is you probably can get fired for masturbating at work at Panda Express.”

THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT BECAUSE #ORANGEMANBAD: EU Coronavirus Cases Twice As Bad As US, And Climbing.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: School Threatens 12-Year-Old With Arrest for Allegedly Missing 90 Minutes of Zoom Class. “Mastrov assumed the school had been sent in error, so he called the school. He was shocked to learn that the authorities meant business: The law says any kid who misses three full days of school or is tardy for a 30-minute class period on three separate occasions can face jail time. The policy was obviously intended to cover unexcused absences for in-person education, but the district apparently intends to apply it to virtual education as well.”

Allowing your kids to attend public school, even virtually, borders on parental malpractice.

THE PALACE GUARD MEDIA: Former Comedian Stephen Colbert Bows Before ‘Your Excellency’ Andrew Cuomo.

Former comedian Stephen Colbert on Thursday continued to turn The Late Show into a show of Democratic talking points as he metaphorically bowed before Andrew Cuomo, unironically calling the New York Governor “your excellency.” Of course, the politician’s disastrous nursing home decision never came up.

Burying the idea that the ex-comedian would speak truth to power, Colbert gushed, “Please welcome governor Andrew Cuomo! Governor, your excellency, thanks for being here. Nice to see you again.” Speaking to the man whose decision to force nursing homes to take COVID patients killed thousands, the host cheered:

Not that you did everything right from the beginning, but the people of New York saw that you took this seriously, and that you did your best to mitigate, and you continue to do your best to mitigate the problem in New York and that on a daily basis you kept them informed.

Related: Over 1,000 New Yorkers hospitalized for COVID-19, the state’s highest level since June.

More: Muslim Group Says Cuomo Is ‘Targeting And Unjustly Blaming’ Jewish Communities For Coronavirus Spread.

Cuomo is a uniter, not a divider!

CHANGE: Birth rates will drop, people will stay single for longer and women will sexualise themselves more: Scientists predict how society will change in a post-COVID world.

In turn, the team suggest, this trend could lead to a ‘large-scale backslide toward “traditional” gender norms’ — where women end up dependant on their men as ‘breadwinners’ — and related shifts further into social conservatism.

‘A consequence of the pandemic, therefore, could be a reduction in tolerance across a range of issues,’ the researchers wrote.

These could include, they added, less acceptance for ‘non-monogamous mating arrangements, legal abortion, and rights for sexual minorities —who violate traditional gender roles and are also stereotyped as promiscuous.’

Furthermore, Professor Haselton said, economic inequality could see many women sexualise themselves more in order to compete with each other for desirable men.

Well, the scientists’ predictions have certainly been spot-on so far.

HAMLET OF THE FAR NORTH WILL VOTE TO CONFIRM JUDGE BARRETT:

Got all that?

This is a coherent, if strange, position. I would note, however, that Murkowski has made an art form of tying herself in knots over whether to support confirming high quality conservative jurists nominated to the Supreme Court.

She agonized — we know because she told us — over whether to back Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination. In the end she didn’t.

Now, she has agonized over whether to back Amy Barrett’s. In the end, she will — sort of.

Just about every other Senator finds it easy enough to take a position in these cases. For some reason, Murkowski finds it a monumentally difficult.

Or to put it another way: Lisa Murkowski Decides She Wants a Political Future.

YOU CAN THANK BLM AND ANTIFA FOR THIS: Leading gun control group misses 2020 spending target… by more than half.

GOP SPOKESWOMAN ELIZABETH HARRINGTON ABSOLUTELY WRECKS CNN’S CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR OVER JOE BIDEN SCANDALS:

[Harrington] then pushes Amanpour further by noting that CNN ran with the unverified, Russian garbage that is the Steele Dossier.

You may recall that CNN’s Jake Tapper first dabbled in the aforementioned, now infamous, dossier, attempting to spread it via unnamed sources without revealing the true origin and its veracity. When Buzzfeed dropped the entire dossier publicly, Tapper actually got upset because he felt like they had stepped on his story. What he was really upset by was that he could no longer peddle bits and pieces of the dossier, without having to answer for the entire document. In other words, for CNN to complain about Russian misinformation, when they were a chief purveyor of Russian misinformation, is extremely rich.

Amanpour then dives headfirst in misleading, fake news by trying to bring up the FBI’s latest press conference as proof that the Biden laptop could be due to Russia. Again, there’s no evidence of that, and the press conference in question made no such mention. But as I predicted in my write-up at the time (see The FBI Throws Joe Biden a Bone), the media were always going to latch onto the vague, unrelated allegations made by the FBI earlier in the week, to muddy the waters and pretend it somehow shows Hunter Biden didn’t make millions peddling influence while paying his dad off. He did.

I figure that Amanpour didn’t think she’d get pushed back on so hard in this interview, but Harrington absolutely takes her to the woodshed, and the full clip is worth the watch. It got so bad that Amanpour gets visibly upset, starts rolling her eyes, and desperately tries to mislead about the FBI presser to change the subject. When that all happens, you know you’ve done a good job combating CNN’s nonsense for the day.

NewsBusters has a transcript of the interview, including this moment:

AMANPOUR: As you know perfectly well, I’m a journalist and a reporter and I follow the facts. And there has never been any issues in terms of [Biden] corruption. Now, let me ask you this. Yesterday, the FBI —

HARRINGTON: Wait, wait, wait!

AMANPOUR: The FBI —

HARRINGTON: How do you know that?

AMANPOUR: I’m talking about reporting and any evidence. I’m talking to you now —

HARRINGTON: I would love if you guys would start doing that digging and start doing that verification.

AMANPOUR: Now, we’re not going to do your work for you. I want to ask you a question —

HARRINGTON: That’s a journalist’s job!

AMANPOUR: — contrary to what —

HARRINGTON: It’s a journalist’s job to find out if this is verified!

Now who’s being naive, Liz?

A TIME FOR CHOOSING: “Why all this anger, and all this fear? Without a doubt, Americans are served up many arguments, regularly, and in generous helpings, why they should be angry and fearful. But, and also without a doubt, Americans also have good reasons not to be either angry or fearful. In the end, whether we are angry and fearful is up to us.”

SEEN ON FACEBOOK:

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Sorority member put on probation for ‘unbecoming’ conservative values expressed on social media.

AT AMAZON, SIONYX Aurora Black I True-Color Digital Night Vision Camera with Picatinny Rail Mount I Ultra Low-Light IR Technology I Weapon Rated, Water Resistant, WiFi & Time Lapse.

JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH MICHAEL YON, who’s got some interesting plans for covering America in the next few months. Visit his Patreon page if you’re interested in helping.

SPLITSVILLE: If Trump is reelected, Oregon could be headed for a crack-up.

See also, my Notre Dame Law Review piece on state secession.

FLASHBACK: “I’VE PROBABLY JUST GOTTEN PARANOID OVER THE YEARS, but the sudden wave of concern over ‘deepfakes’ makes me think maybe there’s some (genuine) video out there that’s really bad for the Democrats.”

SEEN ON FACEBOOK:

OBAMA ERA FLASHBACK: OPM’s ‘Cyber Pearl Harbor’ might affect 14 million.

AN OBITUARY FOR OUR TIMES: Leonard Louis Greendorfer.

Leonard Louis Greendorfer passed away peacefully on October 11, 2020, at age 92, leaving this earth to join the souls of his loved ones on the joyous Simchat Torah holiday. Len was raised in the Richmond District of his beloved San Francisco and spent much of his young life working at the family’s used furniture business on McAllister Street. When San Francisco razed the traditionally Jewish neighborhood of the Fillmore District in favor of redevelopment, the city lost its Jewish core. Len always enjoyed telling his family, friends and anyone else who would listen about the rich Jewish life that used to exist in San Francisco.

Len spent most of his career after the destruction of the Fillmore District in the tobacco industry, but his passion in life was family, friends and faith. . . .

Without pulling punches, Len had disdain for the dramatic changes taking place in local politics and religion. After a brief experiment with a Reform temple, Len and Hannah found a new religious home, as well as a physical home, when they left Daly City to move to Pleasanton. Chabad of the Tri-Valley restored Len’s faith in faith, and the election of President Trump gave Len hope that the American republic would be saved. Len was an ardent Zionist as well and took delight in seeing the re-establishment of the Jewish homeland of Israel as well as its growth into a modern Jewish nation. As proud as he was of the accomplishments of his people in Israel, he was just as shamed at the conduct of progressives who abandoned the Jewish faith for the religion of the Democratic Party. The highlight of recent years for Len was President Trump’s courageous and unprecedent support of Israel and the President’s strong actions to confront progressive anti-Semitism in the United States. . . .

A family service was held at Eternal Home in Colma, in defiance of the politically motivated lockdown that likely shortened Len’s life. In lieu of flowers, Len would appreciate everyone reading this obituary to vote to re-elect President Trump.

His memory is already a blessing.

OPEN THREAD: This is your special place.

SALENA ZITO: Meet the suburban women who may yet win the election for Trump.