NOW OUT FROM KURT SCHLICHTER: His latest Kelly Turnbull novel, Overlord.

NEWSOM PICKS LAPHONZA BUTLER AS FEINSTEIN REPLACEMENT: “Newsom will appoint EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, elevating the head of a fundraising juggernaut that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, according to a person familiar with the decision.”

UPDATE: Why does Butler list her location as “Maryland” on her Twitter homepage?

TO BE FAIR, TRUDEAU JUST FETED A NAZI SOLDIER, SO WHAT’S SHOCKING ABOUT THIS?

Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada. Shameful. https://t.co/oHFFvyBGxu

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 1, 2023

Meanwhile, a friend writes: “BTW, why hasn’t Justin Trudeau’s bank account been frozen for consorting with Nazis?
I mean, he is required under Canadian law to freeze his own bank account, am I wrong?”

Only the bank accounts of people who threaten the establishment. Duh.

OPEN THREAD: Enjoy!

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Buffalo Guy Kicking Himself For Not Just Pulling Fire Alarm To Evacuate Congress.

SPACE: NASA selects SpaceX for rideshare launch of smallsat mission.

DISPATCHES FROM THE SOCIALIST PARADISE: Man arrested by Cuban police for possession of powdered milk is beaten to death.

GREAT MOMENTS IN OBJECTIVITY: Katie Couric: Obama Owes Me a ‘Big-Ass Bouquet’ for 2008 Palin Attack Interview.

Fox News media reporter Joseph Wulfsohn reported on Friday that former CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric boasted at the liberal Texas Tribune Festival last weekend about how she helped Barack Obama get elected in 2008 with her infamous attack interview on Republican Gov. Sarah Palin. “You’re welcome, by the way,” Couric told the audience, sparking laughter and applause.

She added, “I always thought that Barack Obama should have sent me a big-ass bouquet of flowers for that interview.” Then-White House battle-axe Helen Thomas said Couric “saved the country” with that interview.

She justified sticking it to McCain for health reasons, and for his poor judgment in picking Palin. “I think people were concerned that here she would be a heartbeat away from the presidency, John McCain had cancer, I believe, four times. And I think suddenly, they were not only questioning her abilities, but also his judgment in selecting her,” Couric said. “So I think that had a big impact on the election, on the campaign. And so I thought I did a good job.”

As a loyal Democratic Party apparatchik with a byline, I suppose. To be fair, she was far from alone in the MSM selling out that year:

JOHN KASS: Behold: Your Golden Moutza of the Month.

“So many worthy candidates, but only one can win,” notes John Allen. “Chicago’s Brandon for his communist grocery stores and tent cities for the invading alien army. The head vegetable in Washington for blaming that invasion and all the other problems caused by his misguided policies on Trump. Chuck Schemer for always looking over his glasses at us like some stern school marm while he relaxes the rules of decorum to accommodate a guy who refuses to wear the proper uniform. The senator from Pennsylvania who is so addled that he thinks shorts, T-shirt and hoodie IS the proper uniform. AOC for using the pandemic as a reason to buy an electric car. The gaslighted voters who elected ALL the schmos listed above. The left-wing propaganda machine — otherwise known as the news media — for gaslighting all those voters. EVERY one of them deserves the moutza. NAH! Feesa Etho.”

Lin Feddor Cappozzo nominates indicted New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Mendendez.

“Gold bars, cash and cars. Wonder what that bought? Hmm. Claims he will not resign. From the party that screams no one is above the law. Nah!”

Nah, indeed, despite Merrick Garland’s hilarious claim:

WATCH: On 60 Minutes, Joe Biden's AG Merrick Garland laughably claims, "We do not have one rule for Republicans and another rule for Democrats. We don’t have one rule for foes and another for friends." pic.twitter.com/GUVxf5JumT

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) October 1, 2023

SMALLER BUGS TO BITE ‘EM: Deepest Bacteria-Infesting Virus Ever Found Pulled From The Mariana Trench.

SHE’S NOT THE SWIFTEST: Governor Hochul suddenly realizes we have a border crisis.

CHANGE: Sixth Circuit Reverses Preliminary Injunctions Against TN & KY Laws Restricting Gender Dysphoria Treatments for Minors: After a divided ruling, laws limiting such treatments in Tennessee and Kentucky will go into force.

OKAY, GROOMERS: Shocked Parents Discover that Orange County’s Capistrano USD Has A ‘Private’ Individual Transition Plan.

BUT WE ALL KNOW THAT HE WON’T: House Republicans want Bowman to be given Jan. 6 treatment over fire alarm.

‘WE’LL GET YOU THROUGH YOUR CHILDREN!’ The Night in 1958 That Launched the Culture War.

MARK JUDGE: Swimming in shadows: Escaping D.C. for fall contemplation at the beach.

I reread the Earthsea books a couple of years ago, having not read them since junior high. They held up surprisingly well.

BOMB CANADA — THE CASE FOR WAR: ‘Canada has a dark history with Nazis:’ political scandal prompts reckoning.

SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, LONDON TELEGRAPH: It’s time to admit it: Black Lives Matter hysteria made fools of us all.

THIS IS CNN: IRS agent said CNN has Hunter Biden email where Hunter claimed legal ‘stuff’ would go away under Biden admin.

The House Ways and Means Committee released a document on Wednesday showing an IRS agent relaying an inquiry from a CNN producer who claimed to have an email where Hunter Biden said that all of his “stuff” would go away once his father was elected president. To date, the alleged email has never become public.

“Documents show Hunter Biden and his business associates had access to the White House and Joe Biden’s advisors; Biden business associates were instructed to not ‘mention Joe being involved’; and official trips to Ukraine line up U.S. government actions and Hunter Biden’s financial bottom line,” the Wednesday press release states.

“And, after the IRS began investigating these crimes, Hunter apparently “expected all of this ‘stuff’ to go away when his dad becomes President.”

One of the documents involves IRS public affairs officer Justin Cole emailing two IRS officials involved in criminally investigating Hunter Biden and reporting that a CNN producer has an email from Hunter Biden where the president’s son said he was “not willing to accept” a plea deal and “expected all of this ‘stuff’ to go away when his dad becomes president.”

Of course CNN buries it, rather than actually do some reporting: The Hunter Biden scandal has exposed the death of journalism.

MEN NEVER HAD THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE: “Over the last decade, the number of paternity tests taken every year jumped 64 percent, to more than 400,000. That figure counts only a subset of tests — those that are admissible in court and thus require an unbiased tester and a documented chain of possession from test site to lab. Other tests are conducted by men who, like Mike, buy kits from the Internet or at the corner Rite Aid, swab the inside of their cheeks and that of their putative child’s and mail the samples to a lab. Of course, the men who take the tests already question their paternity, and for about 30 percent of them, their hunch is right. Yet as troubled as many of them might be by that news, they are even more stunned to discover that many judges find it irrelevant. State statutes and case law vary widely, but most judges conclude that these men must continue to raise their children — or at least pay support — no matter what their DNA says.”

Plus: “In an age of DNA, when biological relationships can be identified with certainty, it can seem absurd to hew so closely to a centuries-old idea of paternity. And yet basing paternity decisions solely on genetics places the nonbiological father’s welfare above the child’s.”

They’d never phrase things this way regarding a woman.

GERMANS IGNORING OTHER COUNTRIES’ BORDERS AGAIN:

Never trust a cook who won't eat his own schnitzel.

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) September 30, 2023

Is the German public aware of this? https://t.co/CMlRPRn4Z5

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 29, 2023

UNLIMITED LEATHER: 2024 Toyota Tundra 1794 Limited Edition Gets Seemingly Unlimited Leather All Over.

SPACE: Watch a dust devil swirl across Mars in this video from NASA’s Perseverance rover.

READER FAVORITE: Gel Seat Cushion for Long Sitting. #CommissionEarned

NEGLECTING THE TROOPS: Congress blasts Pentagon for ‘dreadful’ barracks conditions. “In a scathing letter addressed to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, lawmakers accused the Pentagon of failing to ‘provide the most basic oversight and care’ of barracks at 10 installations cited in a recent report and called it a ‘failure of leadership’ by Austin ‘that cannot be ignored.'”

I have a nephew in the Army and have heard a number of stories along these lines — no food, no toilet paper, filthy barracks, etc.