VOTE ACCORDINGLY: Kamala Harris Once Suggested It ‘Would Be Great’ To Ban All Gun Ownership.

Related: Kamala Flip Flops on Fracking Pledge Just Weeks Before Polling Day.

Combine those issues and: Houston? She Has a Problem. “Perhaps we’ll get surprised by the results, but this looks like a very bizarre campaign strategy. Harris is losing where she needs to win and campaigning where she doesn’t as the clock runs out. I’d bet this gets a big mention in the post-mortems after November 5 if the current trends hold up.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE AND THE BANANA REPUBLIC: Biden calls for Trump to be jailed 14 days before 2024 election: ‘We gotta lock him up!’

Retiring President Biden stunned listeners Tuesday by calling for his predecessor Donald Trump to be jailed — 14 days before the presidential election in which Trump is the Republican nominee.

“If I said this 5 years ago, you’d lock me up: we gotta lock him up,” Biden, 81, said during a visit to a Democratic campaign office in New Hampshire.

After a four-second pause during which his audience enthusiastically applauded, Biden added: “politically lock him up — lock him out, that’s what we’ve got to do.”

The president and his aides typically refrain from commenting on the four pending criminal cases against Trump, who contends that a quartet of local and federal indictments last year were politically motivated to aid Biden’s then-re-election campaign.

Biden has tauntingly referenced Trump’s legal woes before, including saying last week, “I think he’s running to stay out of jail.”

All the best people told me during Trump’s first term that wanting to lock your political opponents up is the stuff of fascism:

By trying to have Mrs. Clinton prosecuted, Mr. Trump was following through on a campaign promise. At rallies, he often stood on stage denouncing her as crowds chanted, “Lock her up!”

“This reeks of a typical practice in authoritarian regimes where whoever attains power, they don’t just take over power peacefully, but they punish and jail their opponents,” said Matthew Dallek, a political historian and professor at George Washington University.

I eagerly await equally strong condemnations of Biden’s rhetoric as well. (But I won’t be holding my breath in the meantime.)

Simultaneously, I’m eagerly awaiting discussions about the 25th Amendment:

EUROPE CONTINUING TO PARTY LIKE IT’S 1939: Antisemitism has made life in Ireland unbearable, say Israelis.

Israeli people living in Ireland have said their lives here have become “unbearable” in the past year with many afraid to leave their homes and some emigrating to other countries.

According to the 2016 census, 664 Israelis and about 2,500 Jewish people live in Ireland. However, the community claims that Ireland’s pro-Palestine stance has led to an increase in antisemitism that has left many families and their children feeling unsafe.

Bar Clara Mendez McConnon, 33, is originally from the upper Galilee region, which borders Lebanon, but has lived in Dublin on and off since 2012. McConnon is currently in Tel Aviv with her Irish husband and their two young children due to the discrimination they have received.

She said: “For me personally it’s just been heartbreaking. I’ve always been very proud to live in Ireland and was actually deep into my naturalisation process of becoming Irish, but the level of mistrust and isolation got to a point that was just unbearable.

“My eldest son who is seven got bullied at his GAA club a few times by his team-mates and the coach for being Israeli.

“We’ve completely avoided the city centre since October 7 because of the violent graffiti and posters of Hamas terrorists — my son is old enough that he’s able to read them. First he was scared and then he started being ashamed of who he is.

“We had families and friends of years that turned on us. I explained that I can only share the Israeli perspective because that’s my life. My family is being evacuated from the north and one of my childhood friends is one of the hostages that is still there [in Gaza].”

How bad has antisemitism gotten in Ireland? This bad: Bibi banned from Galway.

In a unanimous vote of all 16 councillors present in City Hall last Monday, a motion was carried that the City Council will not welcome any future visits to Galway by Netanyahu, Israel’s president Isaac Herzog, or ministers and ambassadors of the current administration after its military incursions into Lebanon.

The motion, tabled by Councillor Níall McNelis (Lab ), spells out that no senior Israeli officials are welcome here ‘for as long as illegal occupation of Palestine and bordering countries continues, and war crimes are being perpetrated by the Israeli state’. The measure mandates the city council to communicate its ban to President Michael D Higgins, Taoiseach Simon Harris, and minister for foreign affairs, Tánaiste Micheál Martin.

“Look, I know it’s just a motion, and I doubt Israel’s government will pay much heed, but we have to be seen to do something, especially as there are lads from Renmore [Barracks] in Camp Shamrock, and that just brings close to home what this bullying, bully state is doing,” said McNelis after the vote.

Creating no-go zones for Jews in Europe. What could possibly go wrong?

THE ENDGAME: Biden’s quest for a foreign policy legacy.

Like all presidents before him, Joe Biden possesses a high opinion of himself. He believes his half-century record in public life, including his long service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and eight years as vice president, provided him the knowledge, tools and unique ability to get things done on the international stage. His final address to the UN General Assembly in September was motivated in part by a need to elevate what he achieved during his four years. Yet as his tenure comes to a close, he continues to scramble for a foreign policy legacy that will define his presidency. It’s unlikely he’ll get one.

Actually, Biden’s foreign policy legacy has been ensured for quite some time:

TRUMP-ROGAN INTERVIEW SET FOR FRIDAY:

Former President Donald Trump is set to record an interview with podcasting king Joe Rogan on Friday at Rogan’s studio in Austin, Texas.

According to Politico, Rogan — who has over 14 million followers on Spotify, continues to dominate national podcast ratings. Trump’s appearance is expected to help Trump win young male voters — after appearing on such podcasts as “This Week w/ Theo Vaughn” and “Full Send.”

Trump has never appeared on Rogan’s podcast and the two have had a complicated relationship. In August, Trump called out Rogan after the podcaster claimed that politicians on both sides are manipulative except for Robert Kennedy Jr., who at the time was running for president. –Politico

Reactions have been mixed — with some suggesting this is “incredible news,” and others suggesting this might not go well for the former president.

When does Kamala go on Rogan’s show?

WE NEED A COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHUTDOWN OF CBS NEWS UNTIL WE CAN FIGURE OUT JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON THERE: CBS News producer asked if Jews are ‘human like us.’

Marwan Al-Ghoul, who has long covered the region, was “praised by the network last week for his ‘resolve’ in covering the conflict,” but the CBS Gaza-based producer, “has a troubling social media history,” CAMERA told JNS. “His posts include vile antisemitism—denying the humanity of Jews—open support for terrorism, calls for ‘permanent resistance’ and predictions about the demise of both the United States and Israel.”

“This glaring inconsistency raises serious questions about CBS‘s editorial standards,” stated Jonah Cohen, communications director for CAMERA.

Al-Ghoul “has been praised within CBS for his reporting since Oct. 7. CBS News desk editor Emmet Lyons described him as ‘an incredibly courageous man and a fantastic reporter,’ while senior foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer said ‘his resolve is simply astonishing,’” CAMERA said. “However, Al-Ghoul’s social media activity reveals deeply troubling views, including blatant antisemitic rhetoric and praise for violence against Israeli civilians.”

More details here:

In addition to Al Ghoul’s social-media posts and the Dokoupil controversy, Bari Weiss of the Free Press recently exposed that the day after the October 7 attack, CBS News cautioned its reporters about using the word “terrorist,” writing that, while the U.S. government considers Hamas a terrorist organization, the term may not always be accurate.

“There are some who believe the attack by Hamas is a justified retaliation to Israeli occupation of their lands,” the internal email said, according to Weiss. “Others believe this to be an unprovoked attack on Israel and, as such, Israel has every right to defend itself.”

Cohen said the Al Ghoul commentary paired with the Dokoupil episode calls into question CBS News’s integrity.

“We have a situation here where CBS’s editorial standards appear deeply flawed,” he said. “You would think the way Dokoupil was treated, those high standards would be applied to Al Ghoul. And by their own standards, he would be seen as someone who really couldn’t represent the truth of the situation.”

“Truth” and CBS News have been increasingly mutual separate terms for quite some time now, alas.

NEIL KINNOCK SMILES: Kamala Harris Plagiarized Pages of Congressional Testimony From a Republican Colleague. Plus, a Fictionalized Story About Human Trafficking.

In a written statement to the House Judiciary Committee, she described how debt-addled prosecutors often decamp to the private sector a few years into the job, lured by the prospect of higher pay that could be used to pay off law school debt. That dynamic had left many district attorneys’ offices short-staffed, she said, forcing them to put rookie attorneys on complex cases.

“There are numerous criminal cases that are particularly difficult because of the dynamics involved,” Harris wrote. “To name just a few—child abuse, elder neglect, domestic violence, identity theft and public corruption. The stakes are simply too high to allow any attorney other than experienced prosecutors to handle these matters.”

By repaying the loans of prosecutors and public defenders, Harris argued, the bill, which had been introduced with bipartisan support, would provide an incentive for lawyers to enter public service, or at least diminish the incentive to leave it.

The statement was simple and pragmatic. But Harris wasn’t the first person to make it.

Virtually her entire testimony about the bill was taken from that of another district attorney, Paul Logli of Winnebago County, Illinois, who had testified in support of the legislation two months earlier before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both statements cite the same surveys, use the same language, and make the same points in the same order, with a paragraph added here or there. They even contain the same typos, such as missing punctuation or mistaken plurals. One error—a “who” that should have been a “whom”—was corrected in Harris’s transposition.

* * * * * * * *

The plagiarism could become a potent symbol of that critique in the last days of a dead heat. In an article about Rufo’s allegations, the New York Times noted that “none of the passages in question took the ideas or thoughts of another writer.” The new examples—in which Harris lifts pages of original material from other lawyers—undermine that defense and suggest that not all the passages were copied in error. Some contain tell-tale signs of intent, such as small tweaks in punctuation and the removal of minor details.

The symbolism could be especially resonant given that Logli, who has been donating to GOP candidates since 1994, is not the only Republican Harris has been accused of parroting. She endured a different sort of plagiarism scandal in August when she promised to eliminate taxes on tips—two months after her rival, Donald Trump, had promised to do the same.

“This was a TRUMP idea,” Trump fumed on Truth Social at the time. “She has no ideas, she can only steal from me.”

Well, not just from Trump, apparently. Oh and regarding the second half of the headline above:

(Classical reference in headline.)

UNEXPECTEDLY: Former Abercrombie and Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries is arrested for sex trafficking.

Attorneys for the victims of the class action lawsuit said on Tuesday that ‘today’s arrests are monumental for the aspiring male models who were victimized by these individuals.’

‘We look forward to holding Abercrombie and Fitch liable for facilitating this terrible conduct and ensuring that this cannot happen again,’ the statement added.

Abercrombie has previously said it is ‘appalled and disgusted’ by the allegations against Jeffries.

Jeffries, who left Abercrombie in 2014, converted the chain from an struggling retailer of hunting apparel to a seller of must-have teen clothing. But he faced criticism for the company’s sexualized marketing, including billboards and beefy models that alienated potential customers who didn’t fit into its image.

QED, the late William F. Buckley, who famously wrote in November of 2001, in a column titled, “Porn, Pervasive Presence:”

I stopped by at the local Abercrombie & Fitch for sailing wear. I waited, at the counter, for my package and looked down on the A&F Summer Catalogue. You could see the handsome young man on the cover, but the catalogue itself was bound in cellophane. My eyes turned to the card alongside. “To subscribe: Fill out this card and head to the nearest A&F store with a valid photo ID.” With a valid photo ID? I thought that odd and asked the young man behind the counter, who was perhaps 19 years old, why IDs were required for purchasers of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue. He said, “Well, uh, it’s kind of porny inside.”

Abercrombie & Fitch has been from time immemorial a sportswear store renowned for its wholesome regard for the outdoor life. I smile still at the story recorded in The New Yorker generations ago. It was of a gardener in Long Island who yearned to buy a genuine A&F barometer and finally saved up the money to do so. He brought the beautiful thing back from Manhattan to his little house on the south shore, tapped it a few times impatiently, and stormed back to Manhattan to complain to the salesman that it was defective, its needle stuck at the mark “Hurricane.” Abercrombie returned his money and the plaintiff returned to Islip to find that his house had been blown away.

Abercrombie’s barometric needle had pointed resolutely at the impending hurricane of 1938, and presumably the company’s current managers are confident that its current clothes line is also pointed surely, though the summer A&F catalogue seems to be suggesting that young men and women are better off wearing no clothes at all.

It is introduced by a 150-word essay under the title, “The Pleasure Principle.” A definition ensues: “In psychoanalysis, the tendency or drive to achieve pleasure and avoid pain is the chief motivating force in behavior.” And then an amplification: “Summer being our favorite time of the year and all, we’ve worked extra hard to bring you our best issue yet by letting the pleasure principle be our guide through the hottest months.”

The lead page gives us a jaunty blonde clutching her hair, wet from the ocean she has just emerged from. If she is wearing anything, it would be below her pelvic joint. Above it, which is all the viewer can see, there are no clothes.

Exit quote from Buckley: “There was never a pitch more nakedly designed than Abercrombie’s to stimulate erotic appetites. The last part of the catalogue actually depicts clothes of one kind or another, but the reader, getting that far, is hotly indignant: What are all those shirts and shorts and pants doing, interrupting my view of the naked kids! I mean, I showed you my ID, didn’t I?”

AND THE ROLE OF PAULINE KAEL WILL BE PLAYED BY…: New Yorker writer admits he’s never met a Trump supporter at work in 15-year media career. ‘So, yes, there is a liberal bias to the news,’ the longtime journalist wrote.

Jay Caspian Kang, a staff writer for The New Yorker, ascribed media bias not to a conspiracy among journalists, but to the fact that the overwhelming majority of journalists are left-leaning.

Kang wrote a piece for The New Yorker, “How Biased Is the Media, Really?” in response to a recent Gallup poll showing that Americans’ trust in mass media remains not only historically low, but consistently abysmal for the third year in a row.

He responded by addressing multiple common critiques from Americans on both sides of the political spectrum, including the accusation that “Every news organization that feigns objectivity is actually heavily slanted toward the left. Not only that; the media is actively working with the Democrats to defeat Donald Trump.”

“The most obvious explanation for this impression is that the press corps is mostly made up of liberals,” he wrote in the piece, adding that “At prestige outlets—many of which do don the armor of impartiality—the imbalance skews a lot further to the left than what many outsiders might imagine.”

He recalled Uri Berliner emerging as a whistleblower against NPR and the rise of progressive identity-politics, but argued the effect of such politics on journalism is ultimately “negligible compared with the effect of the fact that nearly everyone who works [in the media]” are “college-educated Democratic voters from middle- to upper-middle-class families. I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: in the course of a fifteen-year career that has included stints at radio shows, print outlets, digital media and television, I have yet to meet a Trump supporter at work.”

As Pauline Kael, the New Yorker’s film critic was quoted after the 1972 election, “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”

But certainly not in a newsroom, curiously enough.

But then, given the way that the New York Times’ uber-woke young staffers turned on former Weekly Standard assistant editor Adam Rubenstein like the torch and pitchfork-wielding rampaging mob out of a 1930s Universal horror movie for publishing Tom Cotton’s op-ed in 2020, would anyone who’s even Trump-curious admit to such inclinations in a 2024 newspaper newsroom?

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.”

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:

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

Also Tim Walz:

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.

20 MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: Joseph Campbell: Surprises, outliers, oddities: What to anticipate in the campaign’s closing days.

• Speculation about an October or November surprise, which is an unanticipated development that bursts across the political landscape with potentially shattering effect. Bush’s drunk-driving case, made public by a television reporter in Maine five days before election, certainly was such a surprise. Bush adviser Karl Rove figured the disclosure kept Bush from carrying states that would have ensured him clear popular vote and Electoral College victories. As it was, the 2000 election pivoted on a prolonged dispute about who carried Florida, a dispute settled in Bush’s favor by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A more recent October surprise was the FBI’s announcement, just 11 days before the 2016 election, that it was reopening an inquiry into the private email server Hillary Clinton used during her time as U.S. secretary of State. Clinton later said the FBI’s renewed investigation was “the determining factor” in her loss to Trump.

• Persistent discussion about the campaign’s great known unknown, which is whether pollsters have effectively modified their methodologies so that surveys this year accurately measure Trump’s support. Polls in 2016 and 2020 underestimated his backing, resulting in back-to-back polling embarrassments.

Some pollsters thought adjustments made after the 2016 election would serve them well in 2020. That wasn’t the case. The collective performance of the polls four years ago was the worst in 40 years. If polls underperform as they did in 2020, Trump could be well-positioned to win reelection.

Polling’s known-unknown won’t be resolved till after the election. Even so, it has been a leading topic of discussion among pollsters and pundits for months.

As for what happens after election Tuesday in November, choose your adventure: Politico Loses It Over Trump Losing But ‘Taking Power Anyway.’

Four years ago, a sitting president — rejected by American voters — attempted to seize a second term anyway, plunging the nation into confusion, conflict and, in its last gasp, violence.

Now, Donald Trump’s political comeback has revived a sense of dread among the officials and institutions who stood in his way last time: Could it happen again?

Dozens of interviews with people deeply familiar or involved with the election process point to a clear consensus: Not only could Trump make a second attempt at overturning an election he loses, he and his allies are already laying the groundwork.

“The threat remains,” said Tim Heaphy, who led the investigation into Trump’s election subversion efforts for the House’s Jan. 6 select committee.

Conversely: Will Kamala commit to certifying a Trump win?

Should Trump win the election, we are sure to see a push from the Democratic Party and its allies in the media not to seat Donald Trump for a second and final term, invoking the insurrection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This would cause a constitutional crisis the likes of which the country has never seen and would likely involve the Supreme Court, which the media and Democrats have targeted repeatedly in the past.

If Trump represents the unique threat to democracy the left continues to claim, and if they truly believe he is another Hitler in waiting, a dictator from day one, to what lengths would they go to keep him out of office?

I’d say the two assassination attempts answer that question.

TO BOLDLY SMOKE WHERE NO MAN HAS SMOKED BEFORE: Break Time. “So I figured ‘taking a break’ would be a good theme to cover instead. Not only are we taking a quick break from artwork itself this issue, but we’ll be looking entirely at photos of other people taking breaks. Specifically, people on the sets of famous fantasy and sci-fi movies.”

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Wicked — How To Tank Your Movie In One Easy Step (Video).

Flashback: In a 2013 post titled, “Alec Baldwin’s Real Twitter Problem Isn’t Homophobic Ranting—It’s the End of the Red Carpet,” Nick Gillespie wrote:

Remember the good old days, not just when there were only three national TV networks and one or two national newspapers, but when Hollywood studios could virtually completely control the image surrounding their contract players like halos on a saint’s shoulders? Those days are over, Baby Jane.

Considering the stars’ ability to implode their own projects (and their own careers) these days via their social media freakouts, I bet today’s studio heads desperately wish they could return to the good ol’ days of the iron-fisted Hollywood moguls.

UPDATE: Actress Playing Evil Witch in Wicked Melts Down Over Fan-Created Poster.

OUT ON A LIMB: Ben Shapiro says Harris passed over Josh Shapiro for VP because he’s ‘a pro-Israel Jew’ her ‘pro-Hamas’ voters dislike.

Prolific podcaster Ben Shapiro may not be related to Gov. Josh Shapiro, but he still has his back, telling The Post in no uncertain terms that Kamala Harris “100%” passed over the Pennsylvania governor in her veepstakes because he’s Jewish.

Backstage at a Young Republicans event at Ohio’s Miami University last week, the 40-year-old pundit pulled no punches in his assessment of Democrats’ treatment of Shapiro.

“Kamala Harris was forced to not pick a Jew. I mean, it’s that simple,” Shapiro said. “She didn’t pick Josh Shapiro because Josh Shapiro is a Jew.”

He’s unpersuaded by those who say she picked Walz because he’s a superior choice.

“Her attempts to pretend that Tim Walz is some magical, unimaginable, unspeakably great candidate over the very popular governor of the one swing state she absolutely, 100% needs to win are failing,” he told The Post. “That’s not why. She didn’t pick him because he’s a pro-Israel Jew and that’s just unacceptable to her pro-Hamas base.”

And what does that say about Harris herself? Kamala Harris, Iran’s Pick, Is the Wrong Choice for American Jews.

Harris also opposed the Israeli counterterrorism operation to root out Hamas in its Gaza stronghold of Rafah, which she warned would be a “huge mistake“—the very Rafah where Israel just found and eliminated the architect of October 7, Yahyah Sinwar. Harris has not only opposed successful counterterrorism operations against Hamas but has advocated negotiations with the terrorist organization which have gone nowhere. She has equally opposed Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, even though Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and days away from nuclear weapons capability. She has also opposed placing the Iran-backed Houthis on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list and even denied the existence “radical Islamic terrorism” in the world.

Beyond the JDCA, Kamala has been endorsed by the most anti-Israel congressmembers, people like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who opposes supplying not only offensive weapons to kill terrorists but also funds for the Iron Dome Aerial Defense System to defend Israel’s civilian population. Harris has been embraced by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is notorious for “spreading radicalization through the country through its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood—including Hamas,” according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Harris also wins the highest ratings from the National Iranian American Council, the lobbying arm of the Islamic Republic.

Iran itself has de facto endorsed Kamala by reportedly trying to kill Trump and steal internal documents from his campaign to share with pro-Kamala media outlets.

Since we’re on the eve of a potential de facto fourth term for Obama, flashback: How Obama Paved the Way for the Iran-Promoting, Israel-Pummeling, Squad-Like Biden White House. “Why would the Biden administration have so empowered Iran and its proxies, while putting the screws to Israel in the first place — helping create the conditions for the catastrophe that has unfolded, which could well expand into a regional if not world war? To understand all of this, you have to understand how President Barack Obama normalized the unholy intersectional progressive-Islamist alliance that has now come to dominate the Democrat Party, including this White House.”

NOT LOVIN’ IT: McDonald’s Offered Kamala a Chance to Work at Restaurant Like Trump—She Never Responded.

So, for those keeping score at home, here’s the rundown:

• Kamala says she worked at McDonald’s.
• Trump says, ‘Yeah, no you didn’t.’
• Trump mocks her by working at McDonald’s.
• Kamala is offered a chance to actually work at McDonald’s and … doesn’t.

How hard would it have been to accept the invite and, based on your alleged experience having worked there, run circles around Trump? Wonder why she wouldn’t jump at the chance.  If she held a similar event, legacy media outlets left and right would have fawned over it. It would have disarmed Trump’s line of attack. She could have even argued he was lying, not her.

But she didn’t.

You have to admit, Trump’s move here was genius-level trolling. And this is coming from somebody who initially thought the argument was a little petty and unnecessary.

It’s a microcosm of the election, really. Trump saw a chance to prove he’s more a man of the people and seized on it. Pounced even, as the media might say.

Harris was actually handed a chance to pounce herself and prove she’s not a cold and detached person who makes Hillary Clinton look lively by comparison, and she dropped the ball.

If you can’t make good choices when it comes to working at McDonald’s, how can you be trusted to run the country? Self-awareness: -500 points.

Related: Lefties Are NOT Lovin’ It! Here Are the Top 10 ‘McMeltdowns’ Over Trump’s McDonald’s Visit and LOL.

Most of which boil down “it was a campaign stunt by a politician.” And?

UPDATE: John Ekdahl writes, “My theory on the great liberal McDonalds freakout is this: Donald Trump is not allowed to have fun. Remember, he is the physical avatar of humanity’s cruelty, evil, and malice. The left has also spent a large amount of time, money, and energy though both media and legal campaigns, targeting his livelihood and even his personal freedom all to ensure that the man can never crack a smile again for the rest of his life. And then he did. While donning an apron and serving fries. They can’t handle it.”

NEWSWEEK HAVING A NORMAL ONE TODAY:  Great Moments in Protection Racket Media: Attacking Mickey D’s for Hosting Trump. Ed Morrissey writes:

Alternate headline: Newsweek Digs for Literal Dirt.

Does Newsweek have a running feature on fast-food health inspections? Or do they only do that when Donald Trump charms a battleground state a couple of weeks before an election?

Trump, a big fan of McDonald’s food and a self-professed germophobe, wore an apron over his shirt and tie but did not wear gloves or a hairnet during his visit, stating that his hands were “nice and clean.” According to the Meidas Touch, he went straight to work without washing his hands.

Employees not washing their hands was one of the reasons that restaurant failed its most recent inspection.

I’d guess that, as a self-professed germaphobe, Trump uses enough sanitizer on a regular campaign day to render an entire city block bacteria-free. He might have even improved matters by shaking hands with the entire staff.

Put that point aside for right now, though. What does a previous health inspection for a locally owned fast-food joint have to do with this campaign appearance? Nothing at all, except that it provides a media outlet a way to make Trump look bad and to counter-act any positive impressions of the event.

Did that work? We’ll see, but color me skeptical, as the story reflects much more poorly on Newsweek than Trump, especially with this note:

Newsweek has contacted McDonald’s and the Trump campaign for comment outside business hours. This article will be updated if a comment is received.

Ahem. Was this news about a failed previous health inspection so important that Newsweek couldn’t wait until the business opened to publish it? Why not wait for a response? Did Newsweek expect to get scooped by the New York Times or the Joy Reid show?

Also today, after Trump appeared in a skybox at the Sunday night Jets-Steelers game in Pittsburgh, a separate young (also British-based*, curiously-enough) Newsweek scribe spent nearly 400 words to tell her readers, “Trump Appears to Post Fake Image of Himself as a Star NFL Player,” in the same obsessively dull police blotter-style journalistic tone:

Trump’s torso and arms also appear to have been altered to appear more muscular than they do in other photos and videos of Trump in sportswear, such as those posted by Trump Golf’s Instagram account in July.

According to an image detector search through “Is It AI?” the photo is 81 percent likely to be constructed by AI.

Another AI image detector site, AIimagedetector.org, also concluded that the picture was likely AI-generated, stating the picture is approximately 30 percent human and nearly 70 percent AI-generated.

Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment via email outside of business hours, as well as to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Gosh Newsweek, you’ve got Trump dead to rights with this one!

(Also, an American football fan would have noticed that Trump’s AI image has him wearing the Steelers’ current jersey style. However, Pittsburgh wore their ‘70s-era throwback uniforms last night, which have a different font than the numbers depicted in the Trump AI. The Bad Orange Man might have convinced America’s voters that the Steelers drafted him straight out of Hamburger University if it wasn’t for that one key detail…)

* Old and busted: Make America Great Again. The new hotness? Make Fleet Street Fun Again!

AMAZON REALLY MAKES ONE STOP SHOPPING EASY! WaPo’s Favorite Environmental Group Uses ‘Political’ Research To Link Climate Change to Natural Disasters. It’s Also Bankrolled by WaPo Owner Jeff Bezos. “Bezos’s funding for the group, paired with the Washington Post‘s favorable coverage of its research, raises questions about the newspaper’s declared independence from its billionaire owner. The Post’s stories citing WWA do not acknowledge that Bezos—who purchased the paper in 2013, one year before the group’s founding—also bankrolls WWA.”

UNEXPECTEDLY: California Cops Are Finding Out Teslas Are ‘Nearly Unusable’ As Police Cruisers.

California is all in on an electric future, planning to ban the sale of gas and diesel powered cars starting in 2035. To get ready for this brave new world some police departments started with buying a few Teslas. These departments immediately ran into serious problems using the vehicles as cruisers, such as a lack of charging infrastructure, inadequate interior space, expensive and lengthy retrofitting processes, interference from advanced driver safety assistance systems and more. Police Chief Cedric Crook for the Ukiah, California police department told San Francisco Gate he doesn’t think the department’s Model 3s will see action any time soon:

The car has other issues, namely size. Tesla back seats “only have room for one prisoner,” Crook said, limiting an officer’s ability to sequester suspects. With an all-Tesla police force, Crook believes incidents involving more than one party will require more officers to respond with more cars, putting strain on resources, all because of the tiny back seat.

Police are often required to transport suspects, witnesses or victims for cases they’re working, sometimes for long distances. Crook remembered a case where his detectives drove 630 miles to Mexico to transport a potentially dangerous subject in their vehicle. If the detectives were in a Tesla, Crook noted they would have had to spend an hour in the middle of the drive at an unsecured public charging station standing guard over the person, something that would not happen with an internal combustion engine.

The answer here is obvious: Ford needs to start reissuing the mighty Crown Victoria, once the pride of police forces across the land.

FEEL THE JOYFUL VIBES: Former Target boss issues grim warning as Americans begin holiday shopping and Wall Street traders hang on a knife edge.

THE POWER LINE MID-WEEK IN PICTURES: Special Emergency Big Mac Edition.

BYRON YORK: As attacks intensify, Trump becomes more popular. “It’s entirely possible that wildly negative media coverage is actually causing many people to view Trump more favorably. After all, the media are some of the least-trusted institutions in public life, and if top media figures say something, millions of people are likely to think the opposite. It’s hard to see Trump-bashing as helping Trump, but that might be what is going on.”

GREAT MOMENTS IN 21st CENTURY PARENTING: Massachusetts parents sue school district over student receiving ‘D’ after using AI for social studies project.

The parents of a Massachusetts high school senior who used artificial intelligence (AI) for a social studies project have filed a lawsuit against his teachers and the school after their son received detention and a “D” grade.

“He’s been accused of cheating, and it wasn’t cheating, there was no rule in the handbook against AI,” Jennifer Harris, who along with her husband, Dale, are named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in Massachusetts’ Plymouth County District Court last month against the Hingham High School administration and the school district, told Boston 25 News.

The lawsuit alleges that their son will “suffer irreparable harm that is imminent” over the grade that his parents say kept him out of the National Honor Society, which they claim is threatening his standing with top tier colleges.

“So, our argument to the school was could you fail him with a 59 instead of a 53 so he can have a B minus? He’s applying to top tier schools,” Harris told the news station. “He’s applying to Stanford, he’s applying to MIT. They see a ‘C’ [grade] and it’s going in the trash.”

Harris said that the school “basically punished him for a rule that doesn’t exist,” saying that the school’s code of conduct handbook never mentioned the use of AI in projects until their son was punished, WCVB-TV reported.

She added that her son argued “it’s well documented that AI is the property of the person who generated it,” WBZ-TV reported.

While the school called it plagiarism, the parents and their lawyer disagree.

“There’s a wide gulf of information out there that says AI isn’t plagiarism,” Peter Farrell, who is representing the family, told WCVB.

Your son isn’t the future Capt. Kirk besting the Kobayashi Maru test at Starfleet Academy. There may not be a rule in the handbook against using AI now, but there’s certain to be one very soon. And arguing that “AI is the property of the person who generated it,” is a reminder that it’s also the property of all of the Webpages AI trolls to generate its responses, instead somebody studying those pages himself to learn something. And while a lawyer can make the technical case that AI isn’t plagiarism, it’s an awfully lazy way to get around actually doing what in less enlightened times was once called “hitting the books.”

But as AI does to text what the pocket calculator did to math, look for more and more of reports of students relying on it to attempt to skate through doing their homework: How do teachers detect AI-generated work?