ISRAEL BOMBS IRAN: Explosions are heard across Tehran as IDF forces launch strikes – while blasts also hit Syria.

YEP: “There’s a crazy amount of bias, which drives me away from whatever they are hoping to push. My sympathy for Donald Trump, the target of so much unfairness, is a bit absurd. I’m supposed to hate him? You idiots have made me love him. But somehow now you are drawing the line. What game is this?”

THEY WORK FOR CHEAP: ‘What the F**k to do With Them?’: Russian Troops Not Thrilled with North Korean Conscripts.

COME ON, GUYS, FOR COMPLETENESS SAKE, LET’S PUSH THIS OVER THE TOP:  Rescue me from Costa Rica.

MATT TAIBBI: Note On The Washington Post’s Non-Endorsement: The media ship be sinking.

Around this time last night I read the Levitsky/Ziblatt New York Times editorial about the “Fifth Choice” for stopping Trump, which read like a clarion call to ignore coming bad election news. On the heels of weeks of other catastrophizing editorials, it came as a shock.

Now word comes about stunning industry news of another sort. The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have declined to endorse either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, which in the case of the Bezos Post especially reads like a decision to surrender to coming bad election news. The Post has been the tip of the anti-Trump spear for years, and with the Times led the movement to openly politicize journalism via its insufferably self-congratulating “Democracy Dies in Darkness” campaign, so bowing out of the open advocacy game with publisher William Lewis promising a return to the paper’s “roots” is beyond surprising. Editor-at-large Robert Kagan, who penned last year’s million-word “Calling All Hinckleys” editorial comparing Trump to Julius Caesar, resigned in protest, presumably to spend more time snuggling with spouse Victoria Nuland.

The 16,000 or so comments under the Lewis editorial so far reveal two things. Post readers prefer the more traditionally British double-L spelling of “cancelled.” Also, many readers noticed with chagrin the contrast with the Times piece. . . .

I’ve heard so many crazy things in the last weeks about behind-the-scenes maneuvering in Washington that it’s been tough to know what to believe, but it’s clear we’re headed for some kind of historic confrontation. I have trouble believing institutional America will really reverse course after eight years of dystopian lunacy, but Bezos and the Post just changed something, probably over the passionate objections of 98% of staff. Whatever’s going on, it sure isn’t boring.

I have a theory of what’s going on. More on that in a later post.

HOW PEOPLE CAN USE YOUR PHONE TO TRACK YOU. WITH BONUS ON HOW TO TURN IT OFF IF YOU HAVE AN ANDROID:  The Global Surveillance Free-for-All in Mobile Ad Data.

THE ONLY THING THIS WILL DO IS CONVINCE PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR TRUMP:  Hillary Clinton Joins in on the Trump-Nazi Comparisons.

SOMEBODY CERTAINLY SHOULD:  Florida Sues DOJ for Blocking State Investigation of Trump Assassination Attempt.

AND AGAIN, SHOCKED, SHOCKED, SHOCKED:  Swing-state county reports thousands of suspected fraudulent voter registration forms.

SHOCKED, SHOCKED, SHOCKED. BEHOLD MY SHOCKED FACE:  12 Colorado Mail Ballots Were Stolen And Filled Out. 3 Of Them Were Counted.

NO COMMENT NECESSARY:  Joe Rogan releases podcast with Trump, draws 300K views in 30 minutes.

(This is the post’s election blog, so it might have paged down.)

KEEP IN MIND MY HEALTH MIGHT BE INFLUENCING MY PERSPECTIVE. IT’S BEEN A HARD TWO WEEKS: Super Genius.

Also, don’t worry. I am now on antibiotics. If they don’t work, will go to doc in box tomorrow.

AND THEY ARE SCARED:  Dem Super PAC Runs Intimidating Ads in Cities With High Black Populations: ‘Your Friends and Family Will Be Able To See How Often You Vote’ .

AND PEOPLE ARE TALKING BACK: Auschwitz Survivor: Harris Owes Everyone ‘Murdered by Hitler an Apology’ for Comparing Trump to Him.

AND IN THE END WE WIN, THEY LOSE:  CNN Pundits Blast Kamala’s Evasive ‘Word Salad’ Non-Answers After Train-Wreck Town Hall.

If they fraud themselves in again, it’s just going to make things harder. For a while.

BUT THERE ARE GOOD DEVELOPMENTS:  Israel Launches Retaliatory Counterstrike On Iran.

AND EVEN IF THEIR CANDIDATE IS AS STUPID AS SHE’S EVIL:  Kamala Harris Flunked the Job Interviews.

EVEN IF THEIR FORTIFICATION IS INEFFECTIVE:  The Post Hasn’t Given Up.

DON’T BE SURE WE CAN BEAT THE FRAUD:  ‘What they’re after is the ultimate prize of flipping three to four congressional seats in the state of Ohio,’ GOP state Sen. McColley said.

DON’T BE SURE WE CAN BEAT THE FRAUD: Democrats blocking the early voting sites gives credence to concerns that the left is trying to suppress the vote in the deep-red area.

LOOK, NO, IT’S NOT HOPELESS, AND AT ANY RATE WE SHOULD GIVE IT OUR ALL, BUT DON’T BE SURE WE CAN BEAT THE FRAUD:  BOMBSHELL: Iranian Hackers Broke Into State’s Voter Roll Database – Used Names, SS and Driver’s License #’s to Fill Out UOCAVA Registrations – Shared Video of Their Actions Online!

THEY’RE TRYING TO GET US ALL KILLED:   Trump Team Blasts Harris’s “Dangerous Rhetoric” Remarks.

WELL, YES:

The anger over these non-endorsements illustrates better than anything that liberals now believe that the supreme, overarching duty of media outlets is not to inform or act as adversarial checks on power, but to do everything possible – I mean everything – to help defeat Trump: https://t.co/x03DDZsDCt

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 25, 2024

BREAKING: The Trump-Rogan Podcast Just Dropped! (Video).

SALENA ZITO: Vance homecoming: The recovery and redemption arc of Beverly Aikins.

Last year, when covering Vance visiting one of the Great Oaks Career Campuses, a vocational-technical school system in Cincinnati, I watched him walk into the surgical technology class and see something very familiar to him: students practicing having their blood drawn for final exams — something he told the classroom his mother used to practice on him when she was in nursing school.

Vance was only there to observe the class, but when he noticed that one of the students was anxious about having her blood drawn by her classmate, he casually removed his suit jacket and offered to take her place. When no objection from the teacher or students materialized, he sat down, rolled up his sleeves, and smiled.

He explained he had some experience with this with his mother to the nervous student about to stick a needle in his arm. Vance said quietly, “Don’t be nervous. If you have to do it again, it’s fine with me. I am here for you until you get it right.”

Good for him. I had a similar experience when I was a pretty new professor. The university had “operation health check” at the student center, where you could get your blood pressure taken, have some blood drawn for free bloodwork, and the like. The catch was that it was all done by nursing students. The poor girl who was assigned to draw my blood was super nervous and couldn’t get the vein — which is unusual, because I have “good veins” according to pretty much everyone who’s ever drawn my blood. I let her keep trying until she got it, on like the fifth or sixth try. But I figured if she quit then she’d have a complex forever. Pretty much my whole forearm was black and blue and green later, but it was worth it. After all, I’m a teacher.