EXPLAINED (FOR DUMMIES):  The Problem With Solar.

NOT SURPRISING:  That ‘Town Hall’ That Kamala Harris Did With Liz Cheney Shows This Really Isn’t Working Out Well for Her.

GLOWBALL WORMING GARBAGE IN FEARMONGERING GARBAGE OUT:  We Found an Excel File Online.

BE NOT COCKY. THE FRAUD WE HAVE TO BEAT IS NEXT LEVEL:  Comeback kid? Trump at 268 electoral votes in new swing-state survey.

GOOD:  Israel Targets Hezbollah Banks for Destruction Creating Cash Crunch for Terror Group.

DEMOCRACY LIVE’S OMNIBALLOT ALLOWS ME TO CREATE AND PRINT AN OFFICIAL BALLOT FOR A MADE UP VOTER AT ANY ADDRESS IN KING COUNTY:  Why is it so easy to create and issue real/official ballots to fake voters?

ISLAMOPHOBE!  We need to talk about Islam.

THE UNMITIGATED CHUTZPAH OF DOMINION:  Dominion Voting Systems issued a chilling statement today on 𝕏, reminding Americans that they are actively monitoring online discussions about their voting machines as part of “preparations for future litigation.”

YOU DON’T HATE THEM ENOUGH:  A Media Beyond Caricature.

SHE’S RIGHT:  Bogus Term ‘White Supremacy’ is Just War on the West.

BEHOLD, MY SHOCKED FACE:  Donations and applications to Harvard drop significantly.

IT SHOULD, IF THE PRESS WEREN’T WHOLLY IN THE TANK:  Is This the Video that Should End the Campaign?

THIS IS TRUE:  Ceausescu Solution for Cuba.

THEY’RE DEMOCRAT OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES:  CBS News Gives Deceptive Excuse For Differing Harris Answers.

YES INDEED:  ‘Lack of Planning’: House Task Force Investigating Trump PA Assassination Attempt Releases Damning Interim Report.

YOU KNOW HIM, I KNOW HIM, AND I’M ONE OF THE FRIENDS URGING HIM TO COME HOME:  Rescue me from Costa Rica.

GENTLEMEN, YOU CAN’T ASK THE CANDIDATE QUESTIONS, THIS IS A TOWN HALL! Kamala Harris town hall host Maria Shriver says crowd can’t ask questions because they’re ‘predetermined.’

A town hall event with Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday featured a shocking revelation after one voter simply wondered whether she could ask a question.

Former California First Lady Maria Shriver admitted while hosting the event with former Rep. Liz Cheney in Royal Oak, Michigan that she would only include ‘predetermined questions.’

‘Are we going to be able to ask a question?’ asked a woman in the audience.

‘You’re not, unfortunately we have some predetermined questions,’ Shriver replied. ‘And hopefully I’ll be able to ask some of the questions that might be in your head, I hope so.’

Typically, presidential campaigns allow voters at townhall meetings to ask unscripted questions, which lends a level of authenticity to the proceedings and highlights a presidential candidate’s personal touch.
Shriver said she had agreed to moderate the event as a ‘concerned citizen’ but also a ‘journalist.’

‘I want this to be like a kitchen table, like just think that we’re sitting around at the kitchen table and we’re jamming about all kinds of stuff,’ she said.

Shriver is a member of the Kennedy family and was an NBC journalist* who was married to former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before the couple divorced.

Cheney joked that it felt like a Kennedy family dinner table, noting the number of people in the room.

‘It’s raucous, it’s hot but it’s fun, that’s what it’s going to be like,’ Shriver laughed.

It’s a hot, raucous, but very predetermined bit of fun:

YIKES! Kamala caught staging a sham 'townhall' when audience member tries to ask a question

"You're not [allowed to ask questions.] We have some pre-determined questions." pic.twitter.com/4VXUEUMkth

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 21, 2024

* And still is, according to Shriver’s LinkedIn profile:

UPDATE: Kamala Harris ‘Town Hall’ With Liz Cheney Blows Up on the Launch Pad, and Just Gets Worse From There.

Nothing says “town hall” like pre-determined questions no doubt submitted by the campaign itself. The statement from the moderator that she might “ask some questions that might be in your head” is especially great. Sure, people showed up hoping to actually garner tangible information from Harris, but isn’t hoping that moderator might ask a question somewhat related to something you care about basically the same thing?

Keep in mind that we are still in the middle of a Democrat freak-out over Donald Trump visiting a McDonald’s, with left-wingers letting it be known the event was “staged.” Well, is a “town hall” in which no one can ask questions “staged?” Asking for a friend.

That’s not even the worst part, though. The worst part is trying to make Liz Cheney into a moral arbiter and campaign resource. I’ve seen presidential candidates do some really stupid things over the years, but this might take the cake.

As Varad Mehta notes, “Did the person who wrote this tweet have a reading comprehension problem? Because the first half of it contradicts the second half. You don’t convince anti-abortion voters to vote for a Democrat by telling them the GOP has gone too far on abortion. Did everyone go brain dead?”

And then there’s the enormous popularity of the Cheneys with Muslim-Americans: “No one despises the Cheney family more than Arab-Americans, many of whom see them as the cause of so much death and suffering in the Middle East. Harris needs their votes, and she’s instead pushing them further away just to get some backslaps from a press that is obsessed with lionizing anti-Trump Republicans.”

WHAT DID COMMUNISTS USE BEFORE CANDLES? ELECTRICITY! Cuba’s Government Struggles to Restore Power After Nationwide Blackout: Electricity outages have paralyzed an already-crippled economy, leading to shortages of everything from cash to running water; ‘it’s just like a war economy.’

Millions of Cubans have been without electricity for days as the government struggled to restore nationwide power service after a massive blackout plunged the country into darkness on Friday. Then Hurricane Oscar hit the eastern tip of the island on Sunday.

The collapse of Cuba’s aging power grid has paralyzed an already-crippled economy, with rolling outages affecting everything from running water to the operation of banks, ATMs or debit-card terminals, sparking severe shortages of cash and halting distribution of basic goods and services such as drinking water, residents say.

Millions of Cuban households are seeing their food spoil because of a lack of refrigeration, and people can’t use air conditioning, fans or electric stoves on the tropical island. Cooking gas is also scarce.

In some impoverished districts of the capital Havana, residents are resorting to cooking with coal or firewood on streets and sidewalks. Driving is risky because traffic lights don’t work, residents say. Public transport has also been severely affected because of fuel shortages.

“It’s just like a war economy,” said Clemente Morgado, an Havana resident whose house was without electricity for more than 30 hours. Elsewhere in the city people have gone more than two days without power. At night, many of them have been banging pots in protest, residents say.

The government on Friday declared a state of emergency and halted all nonvital services. It ordered the closure of schools and universities, bars and nightclubs and nonessential workplaces. Hospitals and food-processing centers were permitted to operate, while most state workers were sent home. Authorities required the setup of worker brigades to protect government facilities and prevent looting.

Worker brigades. I might be a tad worried about them if I were in charge there.

OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

HAHA: Put it under a hospital and Israel can’t bomb it, but that doesn’t mean they can’t take it out by other means.

IDF just went It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World on Lebanon and told everyone where Hezbollah's millions of dollars in cash and gold are hidden. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/rdr0O0yvUv

— The Mossad: Satirical and Awesome (@TheMossadIL) October 21, 2024

“There are hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold inside the bunker right now.”

IT’S COME TO THIS: What if Joe Biden was the better candidate all along?

With the Nov. 5 election just over a fortnight away, here is an intriguing thought experiment.

By most accounts, the election is still a horse race too close to call. But although Vice President Kamala Harris quickly assumed the presidential mantle from Joe Biden and put in place an impressive start-up, October has not been particularly kind to her. Donald Trump has closed the electoral gaps, and some believe he is actually leading.

No matter who wins, we have to ask: Would President Biden have been a better candidate and choice despite suffering from the effects of age and 81 years? Further, suppose that the disastrous June 27 debate with Trump had not taken place, or that Biden had been firing on all cylinders that night. Would Biden have been forced to withdraw? And whether Harris loses or wins, some will ask whether Biden might still have been a better candidate.

In accordance with the prophecy:

PRESERVING DEMOCRACY, I GUESS:

🚨 Kamala is SICK & EVIL

This is disturbing

Meet the real Kamala pic.twitter.com/V71qLIk0ff

— Terrence K. Williams (@w_terrence) October 21, 2024

TIM WALZ ON THE VIEW: Trump going to work at a McDonald’s was disrespectful to McDonald’s workers.

Also Tim Walz:

THE NEW SPACE RACE: U.S./China Space Race Heats Up: Artemis, Commercial Space, and the China Challenge.

HOW IT STARTED: Endorsement: Karen Bass for Los Angeles mayor.

—The L.A. Times, October 13th, 2022.

Hot It’s Going: Editorial: L.A. is broke. And the budget crisis is self-inflicted.

Los Angeles is teetering on the edge of a fiscal emergency, with its finances in “dire” condition and no money to cover unplanned expenses after a series of lawsuit payouts blew a hole in the city’s already-tight budget.

So if you were hoping this would be the year that City Hall, in preparation for the 2028 Olympics, would get moving on smoothing busted sidewalks, fixing burned-out streetlights, trimming trees or any other public investments to make the city nicer for residents and visitors alike — don’t hold your breath.

L.A. is broke. Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council have to get serious about developing a plan to stabilize the city’s finances this year and for the future.

It won’t be an easy task. In just the first three months of the fiscal year that started July 1, the city is on the hook for $258 million in liability costs. The largest category of payouts — 40% — is related to Police Department negligence or use of force. About a third of the payouts involve personal injury cases from dangerous conditions, such as broken sidewalks and streetlights. Some 15% are employment cases involving harassment and other workplace conditions.

While the liability expenses are the immediate cause of the dire financial picture, the budget adopted by Bass and the council was already overstretched in large part because of expensive raises for police officers and civilian employees approved in the last fiscal year.

* * * * * * * *

And city leaders have to decide what are the core services that L.A. can afford to provide — or should provide. Public safety is an essential responsibility of local government, but what tasks can civilian employees do more efficiently so sworn police officers can focus on responding to and resolving crimes?

Easing homelessness is a top priority, but should the city continue to pay for social support, mental health and treatment services that are the responsibility of county government? What programs and services should be cut because L.A. cannot afford to do everything for everybody? And what basic municipal responsibilities keep getting reduced because the city isn’t being judicious in its spending decisions?

—The L.A. Times, Friday.

Gooder and harder, L.A., though there is a potential bright spot: Another Poll Shows DA George Gascon Is In Trouble.

As Tom Cotton wrote in late 2021: Recall, Remove and Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor.