PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Musk Sues California Commie Regulators for Blocking SpaceX Launches Over Politics.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: ‘PIECE OF S***’: Gettysburg College admissions counselor unleashes unhinged rant against Trump supporters.

DECLINE IS A CHOICE: Phillips 66 provides notice of its plan to cease operations at Los Angeles-area refinery.

Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) announced plans to cease operations at its Los Angeles-area refinery in the fourth quarter of 2025 and will work with the state of California to supply fuel markets and meet ongoing consumer demand.

“We understand this decision has an impact on our employees, contractors and the broader community,” said Mark Lashier, chairman and CEO of Phillips 66. “We will work to help and support them through this transition.” Approximately 600 employees and 300 contractors currently operate the Los Angeles-area refinery.

“With the long-term sustainability of our Los Angeles Refinery uncertain and affected by market dynamics, we are working with leading land development firms to evaluate the future use of our unique and strategically located properties near the Port of Los Angeles,” said Lashier. “Phillips 66 remains committed to serving California and will continue to take the necessary steps to meet our commercial and customer demands.”

What steps? California is determined to go all-electric and should applaud Phillips’ decision to close the refinery.

(Hat tip, Will Collier.)

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Halloween’s Scariest Horror Story — Four More Years of Kamala Harris. “Kamala Harris has a voice that nails on a chalkboard find irritating. This is the first presidential election I won’t just be concerned about the issues, but I will be voting with my eardrums as well. Yeah, that’s shallow and petty, but it’s honest too.”

DON’T GET COCKY:

🚨 BREAKING: We are now less than 3 weeks from the election and Trump is positioned MUCH stronger in polling than the 2020 election.

Change from this point in 2020:
🔴 National: Trump+7.4
🔴 Pennsylvania: Trump+5.9
🔴 Michigan: Trump+8.2
🔴 Wisconsin: Trump+6
🔴 North Carolina:…

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 16, 2024

Pollsters swear up and down that they’ve figured out ways to mitigate underestimating Trump’s support as badly as they did in 2016 and 2020, but we’ll see.

BYRON YORK: What Bill Clinton’s Laken Riley gaffe says about Harris and the border.

COLLUSION: Socialist Operatives Fueled the Rise of Independent Nebraska Senate Candidate Dan Osborn, Financial Disclosures Show.

DON SURBER: Two interviews. Two candidates. One winner.

WARNING! WARNING! Our federal government has been taken over by ‘Christian Nationalists’ determined to force everybody in America to sing ‘Shout to the Lord,’ attend Wednesday night Prayer Meetings, and bring casseroles to Baptist Potluck Dinners. You MUST check out the third and concluding part of my PJMedia series this week on the Faith of the Founders.

UNNATURAL DISASTER: The PR Fallout of the Kamala Harris FOX News Interview.

THE ENEMY WITHIN: The US Sanctioned an Anti-Israel Group for Backing Terrorists. Months Ago, Its Leaders Were Hobnobbing With Columbia University Students.

TRUST THE GOVERNMENT: FBI Juked the Crime Stats, Quietly Revises.

LIMITED TIME DEAL: 12×56 High Power Monocular Telescope with Smartphone Adapter. #CommissionEarned

YES: Does Kamala Harris Have a Catholic Problem in PA?

A more recent Pew poll shows Harris trailing Donald Trump with Catholics by five points, even worse than Hillary Clinton performed in 2016. But the issue isn’t entirely religious:

“Mr. Biden may be the last of the big-time Democrats whose base was the white working class. But it confers a sensibility Ms. Harris is conspicuously lacking…”

Politico reports that Ms. Harris’s prospects are “considerably dicier” because of a “cultural dissonance” between her progressive San Francisco persona and white working-class Catholic Pennsylvanians.
That gets closer to the real danger for Democrats, but it has less to do with “white” and “Catholic” than it does to working class. Biden had a political and cultural connection to working-class voters, not just because of his Catholicism but because of his background. He fit into that milieu even if that mainly came as a conceit, especially after fifty years in Washington DC, but he could talk in their language too … at least before his brain turned to jelly. People keep overlooking his 2012 address to the Democrat convention, which turned out to be the best of the week, in which he artfully bridged the gap between the working class and the Academia-drenched elite that had mainly taken over the party in the current generation.

Harris simply can’t do that. Not only is she incapable of connecting at anywhere near that level, she only recently even showed a desire to do so.

If Harris were a more talented politician, none of this might be a problem for her. But she came up in Bay Area politics, shielded by big money and a state apparatus so far to the left that she’s practically a moderate there.

Harris never had to develop whatever political skills (assuming she has any) to appeal to anybody outside of San Francisco’s parochial worldview — and it shows.

WEIRD HOW THEY ALL USE THE SAME WORD ON A REGULAR BASIS:

“Testy” is this week’s “sharp as a tack” https://t.co/DoQgTOxKRN

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 17, 2024

Related: “Kamala evaded questions by dumping a family-style sized word salad on Baier’s head and running out the clock. The Kamala handlers describe that as testy. . .”

But it’s not actually a favorable description: “But the current meaning is: ‘Prone to be irritated by small checks and annoyances; impatient of being thwarted; resentful of contradiction or opposition; irascible, short-tempered, peevish, tetchy, ‘crusty.'”

PEOPLE WOULD KNOW THIS IF WE HAD AN EDUCATION SYSTEM INSTEAD OF AN INDOCTRINATION SYSTEM:

What would be dumb is the smaller states agreeing to a union where the urban masses would rule over them. So they didn’t. https://t.co/qDp5EODzHV

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) October 15, 2024

CONTRAST WITH KAMALA ON FOX LAST NIGHT: More, Please: ‘Bussin’ With the Boys’ Answers Serious WaPo Inquiry Re Their Trump Interview. “The clips I’ve seen have been absolutely hilarious, especially one with how Trump comes up with his nicknames. The former president was loose as a goose, comfortable as all get out talking sports, smack, and obviously enjoying (as Kcruella and I have always called it) the ‘scummy male bonding.’ You could tell everyone was truly having a great time.”

WaPo: “Why did you laugh?” The WaPo got all the respect it deserved in response.

And I hope to see the scolds of the media treated this way routinely.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Harris Is Slipping — But Why?

EXPLOSIVE:  Information about North Carolina and the hurricane/flood response: Wendy Patterson on X/Twitter.

FEMA Spokesman on Fox interview 10-14-2024 said that the Governor has to request FEMA. Governor RoyCooper was partying in New York and did not call in FEMA Search and Rescue causing many people who could have been rescued to lose their lives.

NOBODY KNOWS HOW MANY VOTES IN WESTERN NC HELENE WILL COST TRUMP:  Trump stretches Georgia lead in new polling, but North Carolina a jump ball.

EUGENE VOLOKH ON SpaceX’s First Amendment Claim Against California Coastal Commission. “The California Coastal Commission recently decided to block SpaceX’s increase in annual launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base from 36 to 50. SpaceX has just sued, claiming the decision was preempted by federal authority, violated state law, and also violated the First Amendment. I can’t speak to the preemption arguments and the statutory arguments, but I wanted to pass along some thoughts about the First Amendment question. SpaceX is arguing that the Commission’s 6-4 decision was influenced by the Commissioners’ disapproval of Elon Musk’s politics and speech.”

That’s not a hard argument to make, since the Commissioners basically said that.

IT’S GETTING A BIT LATE: Roger Simon: Who Will the Dems Replace Kamala With? She’s done! “Apparently Kamala Harris’ handlers were gesturing wildly to Bret Baier to cut things short during his interview of the vice president Wednesday evening. Good idea—this was a fiasco beyond comprehension. Well, not completely beyond comprehension because we’ve already seen the Biden v. Trump debate.”

HAHA:

To my Democratic friends: maybe you should consider swapping Kamala Harris for Joe Biden.

— JD Vance (@JDVance) October 16, 2024

DESPICABLE AND DUMB IS NO WAY TO GO THROUGH LIFE:  Dimwitted TikTokker tore down Greek flags at NJ restaurant thinking they were Israeli: ‘My bad’.

YOU GET MORE OF WHAT YOU SUBSIDIZE:  Blessed are the foolish, for we will compensate them.