HMM: Secession-Minded Voters in Oregon Upend State’s Gubernatorial Race.

A gubernatorial race that had leaned Democratic all summer is now considered a toss-up, and Oregon could elect its first GOP governor since 1982.

Portland’s social unrest and left-wing politics are leading residents on the eastern fringes of Oregon to contemplate secession. Portland’s social unrest and left-wing politics are leading residents on the eastern fringes of Oregon to contemplate secession.

In Oregon’s unusual three-way competition for the governor’s office, voters who are dead set on becoming part of Idaho could make the difference. . . .

Ms. Johnson has raked in millions of dollars from Oregonians and some of the companies that call the state home, including $1.75 million from the founder of Nike, Phil Knight. She appears to have tapped into a vein of frustration among Oregonians who are, in her words, “really p—ed off” with the direction of the state and its government.

Oregon has, for years, been a mecca for political malcontents, everyone from anarchists to white supremacists to the rioters who carved out a “free protest zone” in downtown Portland and battled with police almost nightly during the summer of 2020’s social unrest.

While Portland has often dominated local, state, and national headlines for its political strife and disorder, the rural parts of the state have also seen no small measure of political alienation.

This alienation has fueled a growing movement among people who live on the eastern fringes of the state that want to break away from Oregon and become part of their more conservative neighbor, Idaho.

A spokesman for the Greater Idaho movement, as it is known, Matt McCaw, tells the Sun that he thinks the movement has mobilized many of Oregon’s more conservative voters in the eastern part of the state.

“People on the east side of the state see things very differently than people on the west side,” he said. “They make their living in a different way and see politics differently.” . . .

“I believe that the difference between urban Portland and the rest of the state is not based just on geography,” she said. “People that feel disrespected, disenfranchised are really p—ed off — they are angry.”

Well, they should be. And my paper on state secession continues to look timely.

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend in style.

SPACE: SpaceX Crew-5 astronauts arrive at launch site for Oct. 5 liftoff.

HURRICANE HORROR:

That overturned Vitamin C Orange 1970 Plymouth Superbird, though!

Of course, the winged warriors from Mopar are such collectors items these days, with average prices at auction pushing a quarter mill, that as long as the VIN plate survives, it’s gonna get rebuilt. Kinda like WWII warbirds that way.

EDIT: Oh lordy it gets worse if you zoom out. At least the much rarer ’69 Charger Daytona stayed on its wheels, although Daytona rear windows don’t grow on trees.

Devastating destruction.

IN CASE YOU THOUGHT THE SECRETARY OF EDUCATION’S PRIORITY MIGHT BE EDUCATION:

PHRASING: “We’re so hungry for organs right now that we are pushing all the limits.”

UPDATE: Related: Doctors are Causing Patients to be Brain Dead So Their Hearts Can be Harvested.

JON GABRIEL: A lot of folks are running the White House. Joe Biden just isn’t one of them.

To understand what’s happening, it’s best not to think of this as a Biden Presidency, but a Biden Regency.

The term was regularly used in the age of kings and empires. If an 8-year-old princess was placed on the throne or an incapable king couldn’t perform his duties, one or several regents would handle the day-to-day operations.

Many a royal adviser would ignore a capable successor, instead crowning a child so the courtiers could run things behind the scenes.

One regency served during the reign of King George III, most famous for losing the Revolutionary War. After several concerning incidents, his mental health collapsed. George remained king on paper, but the Parliament appointed his heir as Prince Regent.

The dissolute prince decided he would rather party than rule, so he happily let the advisers run the show. The regency ran the empire for the next decade.

Whoever’s running things, they aren’t doing it well

In like manner, Biden is surrounded with longtime D.C. power players, such as Ron Klain, Susan Rice, Anita Dunn, John Podesta, Gene Sperling – a veritable “who’s who” of Beltway knife fights and insider skullduggery. Throughout their long careers, they’ve never sought credit or voter approval. Just power.

And the less Joe is around, the more their regency can accomplish.

Or perhaps not. As Matthew Continetti asked in July: Who’s In Charge?

If all the White House has to offer is excuses, if decisions are made either slowly or randomly, if the communications team and the president and vice president seem to live on different planets, if incompetence and mismanagement appear throughout the government, it is because the chief executive allows it. No conspiracy is required to explain the ineptitude. This is Joe Biden we are talking about. Lately, though, I have been having second thoughts. Not that Barack Obama or Ron Klain or Dr. Jill are running the show in secret. What I have been wondering, instead, is whether anyone is leading the government at all. There is no power, either overt or covert, in or behind the throne. The throne is empty.

Think of the economy, the border, and Ukraine. From time to time, Biden addresses these issues. He may even answer questions about them. The White House sends out press releases describing its latest initiatives. Vice President Harris or the second gentleman pops up somewhere to talk about all the good she and he are doing.

Yet each of these elements—the president, his staff, his spokesperson, his vice president, his policy—comes across as disconnected, discombobulated, as if each inhabits a separate sphere of activity. Whether because of Biden’s age, or his weekend trips to Delaware, or years of remote work, or lower-level staff turnover, or a painstakingly slow decision-making process, or ideological stubbornness, or a lack of a strategic plan, this administration drifts from crisis to crisis, and from one bad headline to the next. And nothing improves.

Related: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.

GENERALLY SPEAKING, HURRICANES AREN’T VERY SUNNY: Hurricane Ian: When the power grid goes out, could solar and batteries power your home? Also, even big home batteries aren’t generally good for more than a couple of days. And the expense is greater than a generator.

UM: Tesla unveils ‘Optimus’ robot prototype at AI Day event.

FBI’S TERMINATION LETTER TO DISGRACED FORMER AGENT PETER STRZOK RELEASED AND IT’S SMOKIN:’

Strzok’s hatred of former President Donald J. Trump and obsession with the debunked Russiagate conspiracy theory that the ex-POTUS was in cahoots with the Kremlin clearly affected his judgement, resulting in anti-Trump text messages that were deeply embarrassing to the nation’s foremost law enforcement agency, leading to his firing in 2018, a steamy, adulterous affair with FBI attorney Lisa Page also didn’t help.

The firing letter which was written by David Bowdich who was the bureau’s deputy director at the time was released as a part of the FBI’s response to Strzok’s federal lawsuit alleging that his privacy rights were violated and that he was wrongfully terminated.

“While there is no doubt your 21 years of service to the organization cannot and should not be erased, it is difficult to fathom the repeated, sustained errors of judgment you made while serving as the lead agent in two of the most high profile investigations in the country,” Bowdich wrote in the letter which was dated August 8, 2018. “Though the Office of the Inspector General found no evidence of bias impacted any of your or the FBI’s investigative actions or decisions, your sustained pattern of bad judgment in the use of an FBI device has called into question for many of the decisions made during both the Clinton e-mail investigation and the initial states of the Russian Collusion investigation.”

“In short, your repeated selfishness has called into question the credibility of the entire FBI.”

“In my 23 years in the FBI, I have not seen a more impactful series of missteps which called into question the entire organization and more thoroughly damaged the reputation of the organization,” Bowdich wrote. “In our role as FBI employees we sometimes make unpopular decisions, but the public should be able to examine our work and not have to question motives.”

Earlier: Majority see FBI as Biden’s ‘personal Gestapo’ after Trump raid.

PROF. CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: BIG, DANGEROUS SUNSPOT: “Earth-orbiting satellites have just detected an X1-class solar flare (Oct. 2nd @ 2025 UT). Ironically, it did not come from big dangerous sunspot AR3112, described below, but rather from AR3110, a smaller and apparently less threatening active region. The flare (image) produced a shortwave radio blackout over the Pacific Ocean and parts of North America (blackout map), and it may have hurled a CME into space. Stay tuned for updates.”

ANTONIO BROWN WANTS NFL TEAM TO SIGN HIM BECAUSE OF ABILITY TO ‘EXPOSE A D:’

Free agent wide receiver Antonio Brown tweeted Sunday that any NFL team that needs more offensive production should sign him because he can “expose a D.”

This comes after video obtained by The Post surfaced of Brown exposing himself to stunned hotel guests at a Dubai hotel pool back on May 14.

The video shows Brown shoving his bare buttocks into the face of a woman in the pool before flipping around and lifting his entire body out of the water to the shock of the hotel guests.

Eyewitnesses said Brown had just met the woman and that she was not happy about the incident after the fact.

Brown was asked to leave the hotel shortly after the incident. The hotel had also received earlier complaints about Brown’s activities.

The complaints included Brown smoking what they believe smelled like marijuana in his room.

A representative for the hotel declined to comment.

What a D:

AND YOU CAN’T BEAT FREE: A prominent lawyer recently told me that the best possible advertisement for my book Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America was the introduction, which left him “salivating” to read the rest of it. He suggested I post it online, for free. Here it is.

Given that the Supreme Court is going to consider the constitutionality of affirmative action based on these classifications later this month, the book, and its call for the separation of race and state, is especially timely.

SOUNDS PROMISING: Non-opioid compounds squelch pain without sedation.

THE DREAM: ‘Bionic pancreas’ could track blood sugar, deliver insulin for people with diabetes.

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Video: Shocking Jew-hatred is rampant on American campuses.

EVERGREEN HEADLINE: Expensive New England winter is coming.

New England is approaching what grid officials and utility executives expect to be a very pricey winter for energy consumers and one that risks a shortage of energy during extended periods of extreme cold.

It’s not an unfamiliar forecast for the region, where cold temperatures and natural gas pipeline constraints have a record of driving supply tightness, and thereby driving prices up, during cold winter months. But this year, those pipeline constraints are overlaid by extremely competitive energy markets globally and fuel commodity prices that are already higher than normal going into winter.

That’s led to warnings that $1,000 monthly utility bills could be in order.

At the heart of the challenge are New England’s power generation and residential heating profile. Natural gas accounted for 53% of the region’s power in 2021, while gas is widely used for home heating. In Massachusetts, more than half of households used gas to heat their homes in 2020.

At the same time, interstate pipeline infrastructure “has only expanded incrementally over the last several decades” to supply gas to New England, said ISO New England, the region’s grid operator. “Even as reliance on natural gas for home heating and for power generation has grown significantly.”

As Moe Lane wrote in 2015: New England to Shiver from the Lack of Those Natural Gas Pipelines the Democrats So Hate:

Political stances have consequences: “Natural gas is so abundant and cheap in much of the U.S. that producers want to export it overseas. Except in New England, where gas is so hard to get that companies are importing it from as far away as Yemen.” In this particular case, the stance was we do not want any of those dirty, dirty fossil fuel pipelines in our backyards; and the consequences are soaring natural gas prices (2/3rds higher than the rest of the country) according to the WSJ, with the price probably continuing to skyrocket because of increased demand from consumers and what may be a really, really cold winter*. There’s also apparently the consequence that New England air pollution levels have been rising in the last year due to the need to burn stuff that’s less efficient than natural gas, but that’s a whole different issue**.

…Well. Loathe as I am to see a bunch of Americans pay through the nose for electric – and more importantly, heat – many, many people are going to not-really-nicely note that New Englanders have largely brought this fate down upon themselves by voting in Democrats.  And it’s true! New Englanders did, and they have.

But who could have seen this coming? Actually lots of people – including Nick Schulz, my editor back in the day at Tech Central Station, who warned:

For example, energy market analysts predict this winter will see steep rises in home heating bills as the demand for natural gas grows and supply remains tight. And yet, for years politicians have known of the need to bolster supply and yet obstructed efforts to help do so.

Consider the Bay State, where politicians are considering energy price controls. Massachusetts Sens. Kerry and Kennedy have opposed siting LNG terminals in their region. They also recently voted against an energy bill that would help get more natural gas to market. The Bay State political class has been blocking the surest way to decrease energy costs for their constituents by opposing measures to ease supply. And now it wants price controls? This makes no sense.

In the past 30 years, most people have learned critical lessons. The knee-jerk reaction of capping prices is seen as deeply imprudent by nearly every serious economist and by most political leaders. The basics of free-market dynamics are now pretty well engrained in the culture… but there are holdouts in bell bottoms.

Nick wrote that over 15 years ago — but then, time always stands still on the “Progressive” left.

DISPATCHES FROM THE SOCIAL MEDIA VIRUS: Elon Musk texted before Twitter deal that ‘drastic’ action was needed to tackle bots.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s text messages, made public Thursday in his legal dispute with Twitter (TWTR), show he communicated about its fake account issues both before and after agreeing to buy it for $44 billion.

The revelation that he acknowledged those issues prior to the deal could be important because Musk cited the prevalence of fake accounts on Twitter as his key reason for backing out of the agreement on July 8. Twitter, for its part, claimed his stated concern about fake accounts was a pretext for ditching the deal and sued him four days later to force him to go through with it.

Fake accounts, also known as bots, can spread misinformation and scare off advertisers, who want to sell ads to real people. Musk told a Twitter board member back in April — before he agreed to buy Twitter — that “drastic” action was necessary to tackle bots, according to the newly released text messages.

“This is hard to do as a public company, as purging fake users will make the numbers look terrible, so restructuring should be done as a private company,” he said.

“This is Jack’s opinion too,” Musk said, referring to Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.

Why, it’s like “Twitter sentiment is a Styrofoam iceberg. You may think 9/10 of it is underwater, but actually, 9/10 of it is visible,” to coin an Insta-phrase. Somebody should write a book about this stuff.

KEEP YOUR FEET HAPPY: Hanes Men’s Double No Show Socks 12-Pair Pack. #CommissionEarned

NEITHER AM I: Toyota Still Isn’t Sold On An All-Electric Future. “Despite years of heavy government incentives and mounting social pressure, procuring the resources necessary for battery production has remained difficult. It’s actually been so troublesome that EV prices have remained substantially higher than their internal-combustion counterparts. Meanwhile, charging technologies seem to be advancing at a slower pace than originally hoped and much of the planet presently lacks a comprehensive charging network that would work for places where people tend to cover a lot of ground in a personal conveyance. We’ve likewise been getting hints that other automakers may be losing faith in near-term electrification as well.”

GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA SUFFERS SETBACK: Stacey Abrams loses Georgia voting rights lawsuit on all counts.

CHANGE: The era of fast, cheap genome sequencing is here.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Mandated Diversity Statement Drives Jonathan Haidt To Quit Academic Society.

Last week the New York University (NYU) psychology professor announced that he would resign at the end of the year from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, his primary professional association, because of a newly adopted requirement that everybody presenting research at the group’s conferences explain how their submission advances “equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals.” It was the sort of litmus test against which he has warned, and which he sees as corroding institutions of higher learning.

“Telos means ‘the end, goal, or purpose for which an act is done, or at which a profession or institution aims,'” he wrote in a Sept. 20 piece published on the website of Heterodox Academy, an organization he cofounded that promotes viewpoint diversity on college campuses, and republished by the Chronicle of Higher Education. “The telos of a knife is to cut, the telos of medicine is to heal, and the telos of a university is truth.”

“The Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP)—recently asked me to violate my quasi-fiduciary duty to the truth,” he added. “I was going to attend the annual conference in Atlanta next February to present some research with colleagues on a new and improved version of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. I was surprised to learn about a new rule: In order to present research at the conference, all social psychologists are now required to submit a statement explaining ‘whether and how this submission advances the equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals of SPSP.'”

Such diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements have proliferated at universities and in academic societies, he notes, even though “most academic work has nothing to do with diversity, so these mandatory statements force many academics to betray their quasi-fiduciary duty to the truth by spinning, twisting, or otherwise inventing some tenuous connection to diversity.”

Read the whole thing.

DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Moose pays unexpected visit to Maine daycare. Was there a squirrel?

MUST’VE SOBERED UP! Adam Kinzinger tries deleting most embarrassing tweet of all in bizarre attack on pro-life “Baseball Crank”  Dan McLaughlin (we got it).

More here: Adam Kinzinger ‘Drunk-Tweets’ His Way Into Total Embarrassment.