DAVID HARSANYI: Jimmy Carter Is Our Worst Ex-President. “Joe Scarborough is wrong. The world would have been a far better place had Carter left the stage.”

“Great men” do not, as Carter has his entire post-presidential life, use freelance diplomacy abroad to undermine elected American governments. They do not coddle and legitimize tyrants and murderers around the world. They do not undercut liberalism by allowing despots to use them as props. It is one thing to meet with detestable characters as president — diplomacy and American interests often dictate it — but it is quite another to ally yourself with them as a free man. Yet, that’s what Carter has done for 40 years.

Carter was the first, and only, ex-president to visit communist Cuba. “I look forward to this opportunity to meet with Cuban people from all walks of life and to talk with President Castro,” Carter claimed. While there, Carter would spin fantasies about Cuba’s “superb systems of health care and universal education,” while offering perfunctory attention to the hundreds of political prisoners who were, as he tossed around a baseball with Castro, being imprisoned and tortured.

Then again, there are few communist strongmen who haven’t sung Carter’s praises.

They know who their friends are.

SOUNDLY BEAT THE EXPECTATIONS: September unemployment rate falls to 3.5%, a 50-year low, as payrolls rise by 136,000.

CHANGE? Supreme Court Takes Up First Abortion Case After Kavanaugh Confirmation.

CLAUDIA ROSETT REPORTING FROM HONG KONG: Fueling Hong Kong’s Fury, Carrie Lam Invokes Emergency Powers, Ban Masks. “Having invoked emergency powers, Lam is now in a position to do almost anything. As the New York Times sums it up: ‘Under the emergency powers, Mrs. Lam has a wide discretion to create new criminal laws and amend existing laws — all without going through the legislative process.’ Newspapers can be censored or shuttered, web sites closed down, property seized, searches carried out galore, and so forth.”

Read the whole thing.

AUSTRALIA: ‘A rapidly spreading crisis.’ “A 12-year-old student in Melbourne was verbally abused, physically assaulted and forced to kiss the feet of a Muslim boy – all because he is Jewish.”

THEY’VE GOT TO PROTECT THEIR PHONY-BALONEY JOBS: CNN rejects Trump ad that slams ‘media lapdogs’ Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: #FullOfSchiff Friday Edition. “Last night, the Democrats released transcripts of administration officials’ text messages the Ukraine situation. Here is a synopsis from The Hill that also includes all of the transcripts. I read through several pages of them until I felt as if I’d been placed in a medically induced coma and no longer cared.”

HEH: There Is Absolutely Nothing Suspicious And Criminal-Like About Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian Director’s Salary. “You can pretend, if you want, that there was a purpose in hiring Hunter Biden beyond currying favor with his father. You can pretend, as did John Kerry’s State Department, that there was no conflict of interest or quid pro quo involved that involved pressure being removed from Ukraine in return for employing Joe Biden’s kid. You can pretend that Joe Bidens’ interest in firing that prosecutor was some high minded expression of unity with the EU. Just don’t expect anyone else to go along with that sick fantasy.”

Members of the MSN-DNC excluded, of course.

NOT YET, BUT MAYBE: Is This The End Of The Lithium-Ion Battery?

Aluminum-based batteries would be cheaper to make, because aluminum is the third most abundant element in the Earth’s crust after oxygen and silicon. Aluminum is also light-weight and could be ideal for use in batteries.

Yet, for years scientists have stumbled in the research about aluminum batteries because they have yet to crack the code of what materials to use for the anode and cathode of the battery so that it could enable efficient energy storage with enough energy content.

Now scientists from Sweden and Slovenia say they have found a way to have efficient aluminum batteries with lower environmental impact and lower production costs.

Researchers from Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology and the National Institute of Chemistry in Slovenia came up with a new concept for an aluminum battery design that promises twice the energy density compared to previous aluminum battery versions.

Compared to the lithium-ion batteries today, the new concept could lead to “markedly lower production costs” of aluminum batteries, the scientists say.

Faster, please. And more power, too.

A MODEST PROPOSAL: Woman At AOC Town Hall Insists “We Must Eat The Babies” To Stop Climate Change.

Is it satire? Parody? Rightwing performance art? I don’t know, but we need more like it.

BYRON YORK: Joe Biden is no longer a front-runner.

Back in May of this year, Biden had an enormous 26.8 percentage point lead over the second-place Democrat, Sen. Bernie Sanders, in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. By late June, that lead had shrunk to 15.6 points. By Sept. 1, it was 13.5 points. By mid-September, it was 9.7 points.

Now, Biden’s lead is 2.2 points, which is essentially no lead at all. He is just ahead of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with Sanders having fallen farther back and the rest of the field in the mid-to-low single digits.

Certainly Biden has not been helped by Trump, locked in an impeachment battle with House Democrats, characterizing Biden and son Hunter Biden as corrupt. “Look, Biden and his son are stone-cold crooked,” the president said at the White House Wednesday. Even if the public knows virtually nothing about the Bidens’ case, it’s not good to be called corrupt 24/7.

That could account for a decline in Biden’s support in the last week or so. But Biden’s numbers have been trending downward for months.

I don’t think Democrat primary voters care if he’s crooked; they care if he looks like a loser.

WHITE PEOPLE, AMIRITE? Rep. Rashida Tlaib: ‘Non-African Americans Think All African Americans Look Alike.’

BLUE DOT IN A RED STATE: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Warns Austin to Fix Its Homeless Mess—Or He Will.

DOES HE EVEN KNOW THE WORD? Donald Trump Jr. Blasts Adam Schiff: He Was Hand-Picked by George Soros and Should Resign in Disgrace.

THE ANGLE YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED FROM KAMALA HARRIS TRYING TO “PROTECT” A WHISTLEBLOWER BY SILENCING TRUMP: Kamala Harris’s letter is little more than political posturing. Her posturing is particularly rich, given the way she used government power as California’s attorney general to silence David Daleiden, the “whistleblower,” if you will, behind the sting videos revealing Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in baby body parts.

DEB HEINE: Newly Released Judicial Watch Docs Paint Rosenstein as Active Participant in Deep State Coup. “The communications—which include ‘off the record’ emails with major media outlets around the date of Mueller’s appointment—show that Rosenstein did not just dispassionately go along with the fraudulent probe in an attempt to get at the truth, but was an active participant in the deep state coup, secretly plotting with other FBI and DOJ officials against the president of the United States”

Click on over.

GROSS: EPA Issues Violation Notice to San Francisco.

Last month, President Trump warned of a potential violation notice, saying the city was allowing needles and human waste to go through storm drains to the ocean — an allegation denied by city officials.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler also sent Gov. Gavin Newsom a letter last week alleging waste left by the homeless in San Francisco and other cities was being improperly handled.

Mayor London Breed says the violation notice contains “mischaracterizations, inaccuracies and falsehoods” and says the city’s sewer system is one of the most effective in the country.

Having lived in San Francisco back when it was far cleaner than it is today — and it was gross even then — I’m calling BS on Breed.

THE PERFECT 20TH CENTURY STORY FOR 21ST CENTURY AUDIENCES: Eastwood’s ‘Richard Jewell’ Punches Fake News in the Nose.

SLIPPERY PEOPLE: Is Joe Biden Turning His Quid Pro Quo into an Obama Scandal?

DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE: Rosie O’Donnell deletes Twitter poll that failed to show support for impeachment.

ANDREW YANG SMILES? Wargaming a Sanders Exit. “If I had to pick a likely beneficiary of Sanders dropping out beyond Biden and Warren, the longshot that comes to mind is Andrew Yang.”

Hmm…

SH***Y LITTLE AGENCY: IRS: Sorry, but It’s Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor. “Congress asked the IRS to report on why it audits the poor more than the affluent. Its response is that it doesn’t have enough money and people to audit the wealthy properly. So it’s not going to.”

DON’T PANIC: Bogus Poll Supports Bogus Impeachment.

STUART VARNEY: “Let’s call it what it is: Urban warfare in Hong Kong.”

HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR YOU: The Seven-Year Auto Loan: America’s Middle Class Can’t Afford Its Cars.

That means monthly payments that last well past when the brake pads give out and potentially beyond when the car gets traded in for a new one. About a third of auto loans for new vehicles taken in the first half of 2019 had terms of longer than six years, according to credit-reporting firm Experian PLC. A decade ago, that number was less than 10%.

Car loans that are increasingly stretched out are a pronounced sign that some American middle class buyers can’t afford a middle-class lifestyle.

Incomes have risen at a sluggish pace in the past decade, but car prices have grown rapidly. New technological and safety features, such as larger and more sophisticated multimedia displays, have made even the most basic cars more expensive. U.S. consumers have also veered toward pricier rides such as sport-utility vehicles that tend to dominate auto showrooms. The result is that consumers are seeking bigger loans than ever to purchase a car.

A seven-year loan on a rapidly depreciating commodity doesn’t seem like the smartest idea.

Although to be fair, today’s cars are much more reliable and longer-lasting, so anyone who doesn’t insist on buying new (and all the newest electronics) can find nice deals on three-year lease returns.