DICKENS AND THE 2025 VOTING: Speaking of the outcome of Tuesday’s voting, Family Research Council (FRC) Chairman Tony Perkins recalls Scrooge’s haunted question to the last spirit:

“In ‘A Christmas Carol,’ Ebenezer Scrooge meets the final spirit — the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come — and is terrified by the vision of his own lonely death. Realizing the horror of what he’s seeing, he pleads with the Spirit for hope as he asks the question that pierces through time:

“’Are these the shadows of things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be only?’

“That is one of the most profound moments in Dickens’s story, and it captures the central moral truth — that the future is not fixed. Repentance and moral renewal can alter destiny. Tuesday’s election results may be shadows of things to come, but they don’t have to be.”

Put otherwise, there is nothing inevitable about a Democrat sweep in 2026 unless Americans who know better, allow it to be. Reminds me of Charles Krauthammer’s fine lecture a decade ago entitled “Decline is a Choice.”

CHANGE: University of South Carolina removes gender and pronoun menus from application after contact by US representative.

WHY BE SURPRISED BY DEMS TDS TANTRUM? The always brutally frank guys at Issues & Insights (I&I) contend nobody should be surprised that blue majorities in NYC, New Jersey and Virginia turned out en masse to protest Trump:

“In New Jersey and Virginia, the Republican candidates did worse than Donald Trump just one year ago. And in Virginia, Democrats picked up at least 10 seats in the state legislature.

“New York elected its most radical mayor in its history. Californians voted by an almost 3-to-1 margin to redraw the state’s districts to squeeze out five more seats for Democrats. All of these elections had one thing in common – they were akin to a primal scream about President Donald Trump.”

That said, what the 2025 election results do make clear, according to I&I, is that Republicans better get their voter turnout act together in time for the 2026 mid-term election because if they don’t, the last two years of Trump’s second term will be an unending parade of investigations, impeachments, trials and repeals.

To which I would add: Repealing the Senate filibuster now in order to re-open the government and complete enactment of the Trump agenda, but then failing to keep Congress in GOP hands will guarantee that agenda’s quick execution by the new Democratic majority in 2027.

VENEZUELAN MISSILE CRISIS: Moscow Just Gave Venezuela Air Defenses, Not Ruling Out Strike Missiles.

A high-ranking Russian lawmaker claims his government recently sent Venezuela air defense systems and could provide ballistic and cruise missiles in the future. The comments, to an official Russian media outlet, are a response to the ongoing buildup of U.S. forces in the region aimed at narco-traffickers and Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford is now in the Atlantic, heading for the Caribbean, which you can read more about later in this story. You can catch up with our latest coverage of the Caribbean situation in our story here.

“Russian Pantsir-S1 and Buk-M2E systems were just recently delivered to Caracas by Il-76 transport aircraft,” Alexei Zhuravlev, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, told Gazeta.Ru earlier this week.

“Russia is actually one of Venezuela’s key military-technical partners; we supply the country with virtually the entire range of weapons, from small arms to aircraft,” Zhuravlev added. “Russian Su-30MK2 fighters are the backbone of the Venezuelan Air Force, making it one of the most powerful air powers in the region. The delivery of several S-300VM (Antey-2500) battalions has significantly strengthened the country’s ability to protect important installations from air attacks.”

The delivery of Pantsir-S1 systems would appear to be a new development; however, without visual proof, we cannot independently verify Zhuravlev’s claim.

Previously: Kerry Makes It Official: ‘Era of Monroe Doctrine Is Over.’

While surely many of our troubles long predate the Obama administration, I can’t think of one his administration didn’t make worse.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Virginia Election Results Prove DOGE Has a LOT More Work to Do. “The only thing that part of the country produces is new ways to fleece the American taxpayer. Sadly, business is booming.”

LIMITED TIME DEAL: 12×56 High Power Monocular Telescope for Adults. #CommissionEarned

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Trump’s DOJ Moves to Back Second Amendment Rights in the Courts.

More recently, Pirro has determined another D.C. firearms statute can’t be reconciled with the Second Amendment: the city’s blanket ban on possession of so-called large capacity feeding devices. This statute arbitrarily limits the capacity of a firearm magazine to 10 rounds or fewer, well below the factory-specified capacity for many common guns.

Last month, the United States filed a motion to vacate an appellant’s conviction under D.C. Code §7-2506.01(b) for possession of a large capacity feeding device. According to the filing, it is “the United States’s view that a complete ban on large capacity ammunition feeding devices as defined in D.C. Code § 7-2506.01(b) cannot survive constitutional scrutiny,” and, “As a result, the United States is not prosecuting violations of §7-2506.01(b) …” The filing further acknowledged the Department of Justice’s past defense of the statute but noted it “has changed its position as to the validity of the statute under the Second Amendment.”

If this keeps up, Trump 47 will go down as the most 2nd Amendment-friendly administration since… I don’t even know when.

ICYMI: Trump Just Gave the Finger (Again!) to the Space Establishment.

IT IS, IT’S JUST SHAMELESS NOW: ‘Socialism Is Not a Dirty Word Anymore’: Zohran Mamdani’s Victory Emboldens the Far Left.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Trump’s New World Order.

While the storm Mr. Trump unleashes is chaotic, there is a certain logic to his path. He really does believe that the U.S. is in trouble. From his perspective, stupid Democratic and Republican policies since the end of the Cold War have left the country divided and exposed to dangers overseas. A poorly designed globalization strategy hollowed out the middle class, gutted the defense industrial base, and fueled China’s rise. Clueless elites alienated Americans in pursuit of nonsensical utopian goals. An incompetent American foreign-policy cadre failed to win wars, advance democracy or build peace.

That leaves Mr. Trump with a difficult task. On the one hand, decades of failure, foolishness and shortsighted elite greed have eroded the trust between Americans and the political and administrative mandarins. On the other, the immense efforts required to address the internal challenges and the external threats to the U.S. can be mobilized only on the basis of renewed trust between the national government and the public at large.

Setting the domestic agenda aside, to build that trust and public support for the global struggle, Mr. Trump needs to educate his base without directly challenging some of their core beliefs. Venezuela is a godsend from this point of view. As a leading source of both drugs and illegal migrants, it represents the kind of threat that the Trump base most worries about. And even most isolationists applaud strong American action in the Western Hemisphere.
…
Those who still think of Mr. Trump as a restrainer or isolationist should watch his “60 Minutes” interview. This president isn’t retreating from the world. He aims to reshape it.

Read the whole thing.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. John Roberts And Congress Need To Immediately Stop Gross Ethical Violations By Federal Judges.

JEFFREY CARTER: The Elite Class And Shirking Responsibility: It Started With Vietnam.

ST. PAUL IS A MAJOR CITY… FOR NOW: Illegal Immigrant Wins Mayoral Election in Major City.

HE’S RIGHT. REIN IN THE AWFLS.

Western Civilization is doomed, unless the core weakness of suicidal empathy is recognized and actions are taken that are hard, but necessary for survival https://t.co/aIVbe1fRKS

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 5, 2025

OH PLEASE. LIFE IS FATAL, BUT NOT SERIOUS:  Is it Fixable? – Razör Rants.[Yes, it’s a video. Of course.]

COMMIES ON THE LOOSE:

This is what happens when communists win. https://t.co/nDM20pCE0k

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 5, 2025

PROGRESSIVISM, MAKING SCIENCE IMPOSSIBLE:  The Birth and Burial of Evolutionary Science in Australia.

THIS IS WHY WE DON’T GO ON WITCH HUNTS. THE GEORGE WOULDN’T LIKE THAT:  “Void of Common Sense” George Washington and Guy Fawkes Day, 1775.

THEY’VE BEEN TRYING TO CREATE A STRAW RIGHT FOR THE LAST 100 YEARS, AT LEAST:  Charlie Kirk wasn’t who they said he was. Nick Fuentes isn’t either.  Why the Left wants to pick their own villain.

This is just another lame try.

SOME GOOD NEWS:  Stopping The Slide.

I SUSPECT IT IS MOSTLY BAD FOR DEMOCRATS:  The Democratic Party knows what it wants. And deserves to get it good and hard.

And at this point? I really don’t care (, Margaret).
Those of you in occupied territory, I assume, are adults, and will keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark, and have a plan for leaving if absolutely needed.

SHOCKED. SHOCKED. SHOCKED:  Today in SHOCKING NEWS! Democrat Machine Cities infamous for electing (or “electing”) socialists have elected socialists in an off-year that isn’t even mid-terms where most states aren’t even voting. OMG THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN HISTORY. The ONLY POSSIBLE cause is that people were offended by twitter arguments over the last few weeks.

For the UnXplained!

WHAT HE SAID:   Some Thoughts Regarding Yesterday’s Elections.

THE ELECTIONS NOTWITHSTANDING, THINGS ARE STILL GOING OUR WAY:  Five years later, we’re seeing change.

BEHOLD MY SHOCKED FACE!   Muslim group with ‘deep’ terrorist ties huge backer of Mamdani campaign: documents.