SWEET GIG IF YOU CAN GET IT: “University of Wyoming Kappa Kappa Gamma has become the first sorority at the university to accept a male member into its sisterhood. Artemis Langford, a biological male who identifies as a woman, said that he is excited to ‘be in a sisterhood of awesome women that want to make history.'”

BRAZIL: Far-Left Lula da Silva defeats archrival Bolsonaro in Brazil in very tight race.

LEARN TO CODE: Elon Musk has reportedly ordered layoffs across Twitter.

WELL: Musk: Twitter board defrauded the court — and I own the evidence.

PROF. JACOBSON: Affirmative Action: My Argument Against Racial Preferences Prevails at Cornell Political Union Debate.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: New Twitter Is Full of Glorious Musk-Scented Liberal Tears. “I kept popping on and off of Twitter all weekend just for the straight hits of schadenfreude and it never took me long to get my fix. The aforementioned weeping and gnashing of teeth had devolved into garment-rending and diaper-soiling and — not gonna lie — it was kind of fun to watch.”

IF THEY REALLY NEED HER THERE, IT’S BAD NEWS FOR THE DEMS. IF SHE’S BEING SENT THERE TO KEEP HER OUT OF THE WAY, IT’S BAD NEWS FOR HER. Kamala Harris to stump for Maura Healey, Democrats, at rally Wednesday.

WITH RUTHLESS EFFICIENCY: How Xi sacrificed China’s future in pursuit of total power.

His power, and the sense that he is determined to enforce China’s cultural and military dominance even at the expense of prosperity, has sent a chill through domestic investors and the world order alike.

Proof of Xi’s apparent lack of interest in the economic consequences of his actions can be seen in the Communist leader’s choice for his second in command.

Striding out behind President Xi Jinping at the country’s recently ended Communist Party Congress last weekend, Li Qiang has become a symbol of China’s future.

A man with no central government experience, Li and other members of the Politburo Standing Committee – equivalent to the presidential cabinet – all owe their careers to Xi.

Li Keqiang, the market-orientated premier, has been sidelined. As have central bank governor Yi Gang and China’s top trade negotiator Liu He. Technocrats are out. Loyalists are in.

“China has paid a high price economically in order to maintain low Covid infection,” says Vera Yuen, a lecturer in economics at the Hong Kong University Business School.

“That zero-Covid policy is likely to continue. That will affect China’s connectivity with the rest of the world.”

Xi seems only to be concerned with Communist China’s relative position in the world. If the price of his power is a weaker economy and society, he’ll look for more ways to harm ours.

SHOCKER: Poll shows blacks oppose defunding the police.

A poll that shows ridiculously low support from black voters for defunding the police should be the final nail in the coffin for Democrats’ anti-law and order campaign of the last seven years.

TheGrio.com commissioned a poll, along with the Kaiser Family Foundation, which found that 82% of black respondents want police funding either to be kept about the same (48%) or increased (34%). Only 17% wanted it decreased.

It’s just like Kari Lake said in a recent confrontation with a reporter. If you go into most black neighborhoods and talk about defunding the police, they’ll look at you “like you’re the craziest person on the planet.” But it’s one thing for a white, conservative Republican to say it — it’s far more important to hear black respondents in a poll confirm it overwhelmingly.

We have pointed it out here again and again and again. In any given year, the police shoot and kill less than 20 unarmed black men, according to the Washington Post database of police shootings. This year, it’s only six so far.

That it is even that many is a tragedy, but it’s also a very low number, signifying an event that is extremely rare in a population of 330 million.

Barely even enough to sustain a concerted propaganda campaign.

TODAY!  TODAY!:  The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Harvard/UNC affirmative action cases TODAY.  Then at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time, the Manhattan Institute will be presenting a virtual post-argument analysis with Wai Wah Chin, James Copland, Ilya Shapiro and yours truly.  It should be interesting!  You can register here.

(Here’s the amicus curiae brief that Pete Kirsanow and I did for the case.  And here’s my article on legislation that a future Congress should pass in order to remove the structural supports for race preferential admissions (no matter how the Supreme Court rules).)

(Bumped and amended from yesterday.)

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): As I’ve noted before, affirmative action is beloved by elites, but not by much of anyone else.

UKRAINE: RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 2. Putin’s facing trouble on the home front, it seems like.

The Russian defeat in Kharkiv Oblast and Lyman, combined with the Kremlin’s failure to conduct partial mobilization effectively and fairly are fundamentally changing the Russian information space. Kremlin-sponsored media and Russian milbloggers – a prominent Telegram community composed of Russian war correspondents, former proxy officials, and nationalists – are grieving the loss of Lyman while simultaneously criticizing the bureaucratic failures of the partial mobilization.[1] Kremlin sources and milbloggers are attributing the defeat around Lyman and Kharkiv Oblast to Russian military failures to properly supply and reinforce Russian forces in northern Donbas and complaining about the lack of transparency regarding the progress of the war.[2]

Some guests on heavily-edited Kremlin television programs that aired on October 1 even criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to annex four Ukrainian oblasts before securing their administrative borders or even the frontline, expressing doubts about Russia’s ability ever to occupy the entirety of these territories.[3] Kremlin propagandists no longer conceal their disappointment in the conduct of the partial mobilization, frequently discussing the illegal mobilization of some men and noting issues such as alcoholism among newly mobilized forces.[4] Some speaking on live television have expressed the concern that mobilization will not generate the force necessary to regain the initiative on the battlefield, given the poor quality of Russian reserves.[5]

The Russian information space has significantly deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) that things are generally under control. . . . Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets.

Hmm. Also, interesting role for the media. Our media, too, spends most of its time safeguarding the regime, and cracks are appearing in the wall here, as well.

THE DOJ NEEDS TO FACE MORE CONSEQUENCES FOR ITS MISBEHAVIOR. A LOT MORE. Biden’s DOJ finally got a legal slapdown for targeting a group opposed to mutilating kids.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Biden’s Diesel Fuel Crisis Worsens: Major Fuel Company Issues New Warning. “Maryland, Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina were listed as some of the states that would be immediately hit by the shortage.”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Teachers Pay to Mail Falsehoods to Massachusetts Voters: In costly campaign for tax increase, misleading claims about revenues, rates.

Even if public education were good as education, which it isn’t, it would probably be a bad idea based solely on its corrupting politics.

THEIR IDEA OF “DECENCY” ALWAYS INVOLVES REPUBLICANS BEING SHUT DOWN: Dems, Media Demand GOP Call Off Campaign: Democrats have their own craven political response to the attack on Paul Pelosi.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Men’s Slim Airtag Wallet with Airtag Holder. #CommissionEarned

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA Will Launch ‘Psyche’ Mission To Explore Asteroid Worth More Than The Global Economy.

16 Psyche—a 140-mile-wide/226-kilometer-wide asteroid—could contain a core of iron, nickel and gold worth $10,000 quadrillion.

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft was set to launch in August 2022 and arrive at the asteroid in 2026. However, software issues and mission development problems meant the mission missed its window. An internal continuation/termination review followed that asked if the mission would be able to overcome its issues to successfully launch in 2023.

NASA has now announced its decision to take the Psyche mission forward and target a launch no earlier than October 10, 2023.

Psyche is potentially a much bigger deal than the Moon or Mars.

HAHA! It’s Happening! Elon’s Twitter Just Fact-Checked Joe Biden’s Official Presidential Account.

HE’S NOT WRONG: Whole Foods founder: The socialists are marching through the institutions.

We need a purge.

FROM I KTAPOP MEDIA: The iktaPOP Media Eerie Collection 2022: A Horror and Weird Fiction Free Culture omnibus Kindle.

#CommissionEarned

Just in time for All Hallow’s Eve, the second annual iktaPOP Media Eerie Collection is here, bringing you over 250,000 words of free culture terror!

From young H.P. Lovecraft stretching his new-writer muscles in a Poe pastiche to legendary Leigh Brackett exploring claustrophobic underwater horror on Venus, from two chilling Victorian ghost stories to Clark Ashton Smith paying tribute to his buddy Lovecraft, this year’s collection has it all!

The stories and novels in this year’s collection are:
“The Tomb” by H.P. Lovecraft
Terror Out Of Space by J. M. Walsh
“Terror Out Of Space” by Leigh Brackett
The Terror Out Of Space by Dwight V. Swain
Bride of Osiris by Otis Adelbert Kline
“The Horror Undying” by Manly Wade Wellman
The Fire Princess by Edmond Hamilton
“Xelucha” by M. P. Shiel
On The Knees Of The Gods by J. Allan Dunn
“The Phantom Coach” by Amelia B. Edwards
“The Hunters From Beyond” by Clark Ashton Smith
Get it while it’s available, this collection will only be up for purchase until next year’s collection goes live!

This iktaPOP Media special collection includes introductions giving genre and historical context.

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER: Gypsy Taub Speaks! Pelosi Attacker’s Former ‘Life Partner’ Definitively Torpedoes the Media Narrative.

IT’S COME TO THIS: CEOs fixing Biden’s Saudi oil mess because he won’t. “I am told by people with knowledge of the matter that the real reason so many top CEOs attended the conference was to forge a truce between the Saudis and the Biden administration. The ongoing and very public bellicosity between the two longtime allies is bad for business, both the CEOs’ and that of the US. True, Saudi Arabia is a big Wall Street client looking to further modernize its economy through investment-banking deals, while it turns to our financial sector to manage its riches. But the growing consensus among the people who run the US financial system is that having the Saudis as an enemy is among the biggest geo­political and economic mistakes of the mistake-prone Biden administration. It will embolden the aims of our common enemy, the terrorist regime in Iran, and drive the Kingdom further into the hands of our rivals, Russia and especially China.”

HMM: Marvin Moy, NYC doctor charged by feds, vanishes after alleged LI boat accident. “A Manhattan doctor charged by federal authorities in a massive health-fraud scheme mysteriously vanished in an alleged dead-of-night boating accident off the Long Island coast earlier this month. Friends of Dr. Marvin Moy told The Post they’re left with unanswered questions about the alleged accident that apparently flung Moy overboard after he and his passenger collided with a larger vessel about 25 miles off the coast of Fire Island. Moy’s boat, the Sure Shot, sank and rescuers reported debris and an oil sheen in the water, the Coast Guard said.”

I have friends who report losing guns in similar accidents.

ROLL LEFT AND DIE!   Paypal losing customers at an alarming rate, even as it blacklists Hong Kong pro-democracy group.

THE LEFT IS VIOLENT. IT’S PART OF THEIR BELIEFS:  Permissible and Impermissible Incendiary Speech?