OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China launches third high orbit internet satellite.

WHY ON EARTH IS THE HOUSE OF STEPHANOPOULOS PRO-VENEZUELAN GANGS? J.D. Vance Destroys ABC News Anchor for Downplaying Immigrant Gang Violence.

Raddatz: "The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes… A handful!"@JDVance: "Do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes were taken over by Venezuelan gangs and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris' open border?"

🔥 pic.twitter.com/VY4Ai35YJk

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 13, 2024

I can’t imagine George’s former(?) boss agreeing with this policy:

As we’ve noted before, Bill’s clip from 1995, and other past clips from Democrat grandees such as Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama with similar messages should be running in Trump adds with an “I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message” tag tacked on.

UPDATE:

More: The guild protects its own:

DOESN’T REQUIRE MUCH EQUIPMENT, EITHER: Isometric Exercise: Why This Workout Regime Is So Good For You.

HMM: Third Trump assassination attempt thwarted when armed man arrested outside Coachella rally, sheriff says. “The suspect — identified as 49-year-old Las Vegas resident Vem Miller — was caught at a checkpoint about a quarter-mile from the rally with fake VIP passes to the rally and fake press passes — as well as unregistered weapons, including a loaded shotgun, a handgun and a high-capacity magazine, according to the Riverside County sheriff’s office.”

WELL, THAT’S BAD: Chronic stress speeds colorectal cancer’s spread dramatically, study indicates.

READER FAVORITE: Apple AirPods Pro 2 Wireless Earbuds, Bluetooth Headphones. #CommissionEarned

“CAN I GET ME A HUNTING LICENSE HERE?” THE NEXT GENERATION: Hunters laugh off the Harris-Walz campaign effort to win their vote.

Avid outdoorsmen are slamming a new political coalition formed by the Harris-Walz campaign aimed at winning their vote in the 2024 presidential election.

“Hunters and anglers want to support Harris-Walz as much as the fish and game want to be eaten,” one Maryland-based hunter who recently bagged a state record bear chuckled to The Spectator.

Governor Tim Walz kicked off the “Hunters and Anglers for Harris-Walz” group on Friday with an article placed in Outdoor Life magazine. The coalition is described as “a new national organizing program to engage, mobilize a broad coalition of sportspeople, conservationists and rural and gun violence prevention voters in key states across the country.” They will have a national organizing call next week, but the campaign has not indicated which prominent hunters and anglers will be a part of the coalition.

Some hunters and anglers are already reacting negatively to the campaign’s plan, pointing out that Harris and Walz have supported gun control measures and that the Biden-Harris administration has made life more difficult for hunters and anglers.

Gabriella Hoffman, the director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at Independent Women’s Forum and host of the District of Conservation podcast, quipped that “No $40 camo hat will convince most sportsmen and women that Harris-Walz represents them.”

But then, maybe it’s not intended to:

In any case, Kamala’s outreach to men may have just been derailed by Gwen Walz’s schoolmarm hectoring to Kamala’s base:

Gwen Walz has an assignment for you 👩‍🏫 pic.twitter.com/tTBZPJxsjs

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 13, 2024

Exit quote: “What the heck? Too much of the fumes from those burning tires during the riots? Maybe she should have closed the windows.”

OBVIOUSLY, THIS IS MORE PROOF THAT WE’RE LIVING IN A SIMULATION: The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It.

ARE THEY TRYING FOR A RECORD? BREAKING: Third Trump Assassination Attempt Thwarted.

DEVELOPING: Trump targeted in THIRD ‘assassination attempt’ as gunman arrested outside Coachella rally.

SELF DEFENSE: Dealing With The Aftermath: Be prepared for what happens after a defensive encounter.

BILL WHITTLE: It worked. We’re going to Mars.

SOMETIMES THE LEFT HAND DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THE FAR LEFT HAND IS DOING: Tensions rise between Harris and Biden teams as election nears.

The relationship between Kamala Harris‘ team and Joe Biden‘s White House has been increasingly fraught in the final weeks before Election Day, 10 people familiar with the situation tell Axios.

Why it matters: Biden’s team wants Harris to win the election, but many senior Biden aides remain wounded by the president being pushed out of his re-election bid and are still adjusting to being in a supporting role on the campaign trail.

• “They’re too much in their feelings,” one close Harris ally said of the president’s team — a sentiment shared even by some White House aides.

Driving the news: Some on the Harris team say that top White House aides aren’t sufficiently coordinating Biden’s messaging and schedule to align with what’s best for the vice president’s campaign.

• Biden gave an impromptu press conference in the White House briefing room Friday just as Harris was about to do an event in Michigan, ensuring that her event would get less TV coverage than it otherwise would have.

• Earlier in the week, Harris criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for not taking her call about the recent hurricanes, only for Biden to praise DeSantis soon after for being “gracious” and “cooperative.” (A person familiar with the situation told Axios that Biden hadn’t been briefed on Harris’ comments.)

• Biden has been eager to boast about a robust jobs report, helping to end the strike by the longshoremen’s union and other perceived victories recently. Harris has been trying to focus on voters’ pocketbook concerns, including inflation.

• One person involved with Harris’ campaign told Axios: “The White House is lacking someone in the room thinking first and foremost about how things would affect the campaign.”

Dr. Jill, channeling Edith Wilson, smiles.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Over 86% of surveyed health care providers are short on IV fluids: Providers are starting to put off elective surgeries and other procedures.

DON’T GET COCKY:  The feeling may not last, but right now it does not seem impossible that the GOP will gain possession of  the White House and the Senate, and also retain the House of Representatives.  If so, I hope somebody on the Hill remembers my “Agenda for Congress” written two years ago.  These situations do not come around all that often (and they may to come around this time).  Still, the only way to take advantage of them is to be ready BEFORE they become established facts.

DELETE THIS MESSAGE: Review: The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

The scandal of the book—and the reason Tony Dokoupil of CBS wasn’t simply justified in challenging Coates in a recent interview but had a duty to challenge him—is that Coates never mentions Palestinian terrorism. An unobservant or gullible person could read The Message and have no idea that the Israeli soldiers’ vigilance is a consequence of Palestinians’ notable tendency to lunge at Jews with knives, self-detonate in crowded areas, and otherwise maim and murder innocents. Coates doesn’t mention the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, or any other act of Palestinian terrorism. Nor does he wonder why, although more than two million Arabs are citizens of Israel, few if any Jews are citizens of Arab countries.

With The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates has become a clownish, postmodern Walter Duranty. Duranty, recall, was the prize-winning Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times who deliberately misled the American public about Soviet crimes. Only Coates isn’t misleading anybody. And Duranty, for all his sins, could write.

Basil Fawlty smiles — finally someone took his advice: “Just don’t mention the war.”

MICROBIOME NEWS: Possible trigger of Crohn’s disease discovered: Dysfunctional mitochondria disrupt the gut microbiome.

DON’T GET COCKY: Social media goes into meltdown as Saturday Night Live destroys Kamala Harris: ‘It’s over. The Democrats have lost SNL.’

UNEXPECTEDLY: America’s New Millionaire Class: Plumbers and HVAC Entrepreneurs. Private equity is pouring money into skilled-trade small businesses; ‘Next thing you know, you’re running an empire.’

Aaron Rice has two logos tattooed on his left leg: one from the plumbing business he co-founded more than a decade ago, and another from the private-equity-backed company that recently bought it.

Few businesses are as vital to their customers as local plumbing, heating or air-conditioning companies—especially in places like Tucson, Ariz., where Rice works and residents sweltered in 100-degree heat most days this summer.

COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Friendships in teen years important for future happiness.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD HAS A QUESTION (Video):

Are YOU man enough to vote for Kamala Harris? pic.twitter.com/qCyWGhcEH0

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 12, 2024

ONE MAN’S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER MAN’S FREEDOM FIGHTER, SLIGHT RETURN: CBS News Told Staffers Not To Refer to Hamas as ‘Terrorists.’

CBS News executives cautioned their journalists against referring to Hamas members as “terrorists” in a memo issued the day after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, according to the Free Press. It’s the latest embarrassment for the news organization, which is in turmoil amid a daily drip of disclosures about institutionalized anti-Israel bias as well as anti-Trump bias.

Thursday night, the Free Press published an excerpt of an email sent to reporters on October 8, 2023, with the subject, “Standards guidance: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

“Reporting on this weekend’s violence in Israel and Gaza requires a closer look at the language we use when describing events,” the email stated. “For instance, the U.S. government considers Hamas a terrorist organization; however, suggesting an individual is a ‘terrorist’ may be inaccurate depending on the facts.”

The email also noted there are disagreements over whether the attack was “justified” in response to “Israeli occupation of their lands.” The message then said there are “others” who “believe this to be an unprovoked attack on Israel and, as such, Israel has every right to defend itself.”

A source with knowledge of the situation confirmed the guidance to the Sun. They said the goal of the guidance is to avoid generalizations about people in Gaza, such as labeling a doctor or nurse with the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry a terrorist without information they engaged in terrorism.

However, even the left-leaning Council on Foreign Relations notes Hamas has “put in place authoritarian institutions” that leave little room for flexibility or the ability to operate independently. Those who step out of line can face harsh punishments.

Additionally, the Israel Defense Forces have released video footage as evidence that Hamas has used civilian infrastructure such as hospitals as “command and control” centers and even possibly to hold hostages from the October 7 attack.

CBS News did not comment on the guidance.

As T. Becket Adams of NRO adds: CBS Makes a Mockery of ‘Standards.’

As incomprehensible as CBS’s approach to these back-to-back issues may be, one should not be surprised. This is hardly the first time the network has played fast and loose with its own unique and, apparently, proprietary set of journalism standards.

Recall that Gayle King, a news anchor, ruffled no feathers on May 26, 2020, when she declared following the death of George Floyd, “I am speechless. I am really, really speechless about what we’re seeing on television this morning. It feels to me like open season . . . and that sometimes it’s not a safe place to be in this country for black men.”

This pronouncement cleared the network’s bar for “impartiality”? Or did management reason that King was exempted from the usual standards regarding personal commentary because she is black, and the news upon which she was commenting involved a black man? If so, does this courtesy not extend to Dokoupil, who, as a Jew, might have a valuable perspective on matters affecting the life and death of Jews, as King presumably did for blacks?

And what are we to make of King’s CBS Mornings interview of the Israeli father of a child taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, in which she said, “Now this seems to be all about politics. What do you say about that? You know, you have innocent children and Palestinians who are dying, innocent Israeli children who are dying. And no one seems to be able to say, ‘Enough, stop that.’” To this, Tom Hand replied, in a tone of anguished exasperation, that he didn’t care about politics, he just wanted his Emily back. CBS’s Standards and Practices and Race and Culture units had nothing to say about this interaction? No all-hands reprimand for King’s “tone”?

The Dokoupil saga will likely get dumber before it eventually blows over. But let’s not lose sight of the big question underlying it. CBS executives claim Dokoupil failed to meet their exacting standards of journalistic excellence. They say this even though his colleagues have grilled guests with objectively inappropriate lines of questions, with zero internal pushback. These executives say this even as 60 Minutes openly violates the network’s interview production and editing standards, with zero explanation or defense provided.

All of this goes back to the underlying question: What standards?

It’s the Calvinball Broadcasting System. But is the clock ticking on its current woke insanity? The joke is on woke CBS News execs as new execs considering ‘blowing the place up.’

What is less public is how all this weirdness is impacting CBS’s future as an ongoing business, and most important, its pending sale to Skydance, an independent studio run by movie producer David Ellison of “Top Gun: Maverick” fame.

David’s dad, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, provides much of the money behind the deal and from what I gather, he’s not too happy about his latest acquisition.

If you don’t know Larry, here’s a primer: He’s one of the world’s richest men, and one of the most pro-Israel executives in corporate America — he’s buds with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

Let’s just say the people at Skydance and the Ellisons read the newspapers (particularly The Post, which I know for a fact).

They are powerless to do anything about what’s happening at CBS for now; the $28 billion deal to buy the network’s parent Paramount from the controlling Redstone family doesn’t close until sometime in the spring.

But they won’t be powerless for much longer. As one person who knows all the players at CBS’s new owners told me: “They’re thinking about blowing the place up.”

What exactly “blowing the place up” means, no one knows for sure. Will it result in the defenestration of CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon and news-gathering chief Adrienne Roark, both of whom presided over the in-house thrashing of Dokoupil?

Hopefully Ellison won’t be as hands off in shaping CBS News as Jeff Bezos has been while the Washington Post spiraled out of control.

(Classical reference in headline.)

TO BE FAIR, SHE’S ALWAYS BEEN PRO-BUSSING: The Univison Town Hall Imploding: They Flew in Audience Members.

[Michael Tracey] investigated Univision’s “town hall” and found half of the audience was flown in at the network’s expense, while the other half was brought in by a rent-an-audience company called FansOnQ.

It turns out, some “undecided” voters admitted to being Kamala Harris supporters.

“I already knew I was going to go for Kamala before the event, and now that just kind of solidified it… part of the reason I wanted to go was just fully support her,” one respondent said.

Everything about the Harris campaign is *FAKE.*

Worse than that, the U.S. and international media are helping her to fake it. This is Mexican collusion to commit election interference.

Tracey adds:

Tracey tried to interview some of the attendees:

However, a corporate dictate apparently came down prohibiting this. “We won’t be making them available,” Anna Negron, Director of Corporate Communications at TelevisaUnivision, told me when I asked if there would be an opportunity to interview said audience members. She would not elaborate on the reason for this strange secrecy. Reporter Mark Kellner of the New York Post asked Negron the same question, and was similarly dismissed.

“Gee, I wonder why,” Townhall’s Matt Vespa writes, adding, “We made fun of the fact that a teleprompter was in view during this event, which wouldn’t shock us since the vice president is a disaster without a script. Supposedly, that’s been debunked; she wasn’t using such a device for this event, but this revelation is frankly much worse.”

“DO THE LETTERS F.O. MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU?” Matt Taibbi: The Hurricane Speech Panic is Here: In a sequel to the pandemic panic, politicians and elite media are calling for a European-style speech clampdown, this time using the weather as an excuse.”

When you’re crooks and morons whose policies can’t withstand criticism, your first instinct is to shut down the critics.