LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: How Hunger Fuels Crime and Violence in Venezuela.

Desperate people in Venezuela don’t rob stores or banks. There would be no point; cash machines have been mostly empty since early this year, when hyperinflation transformed the bolívar into a worthless piece of paper.

But desperate people in Venezuela do rob restaurants.

As the country creaks into its fifth year of economic crisis, hunger is on everyone’s minds. Nine out of 10 households say they don’t have enough money to buy food. Nearly two-thirds go to sleep hungry at night. Catholic non-profit Cáritas calculates that a family would need 98 times the minimum wage to afford a basic food supply.

If you’re opposed to socialism, it’s because you’re uncaring.

YOU MIGHT NOT BE INTERESTED IN THE THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG, BUT THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG IS INTERESTED IN YOU: AP Inserts Politics Into Article About Dead Sea Scrolls.

REDWASHING: Dem Consultants Tried to Erase Candidate’s Time in Cuba.

The media consultants for a Democratic congressional candidate in Washington recently attempted to edit her Wikipedia page to remove details about her time in Nicaragua and Cuba. Lisa Brown’s D.C.- and Seattle-based media consultants, GMMB, appear to have tried to change her Wikipedia page last week.

One of the edits concerned a trip to Cuba in 2016 in which Brown joined former Washington lieutenant governor Brad Owen to examine the country’s health care system. Brown seemed to be impressed by it and said the United States could take lessons from Cuba’s neighborhood-based clinics.

The other edits related to Brown’s time in Nicaragua in the early 1990s. Brown has admitted to working in “opposition to U.S. policy in Central America” while teaching at the University of Central America.

Brown worked in Nicaragua in 1990, teaching a macroeconomics seminar at the University of Central America and was “one of hundreds of so-called ‘internacionalistas,’ cooperating with Nicaragua’s outgoing Sandinista government by offering technical skills.”

The “internacionalistas” strongly supported Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, head of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, who was defeated in the 1990 presidential election.

If democratic socialism is nothing to be ashamed of, why is she acting ashamed of it?

THE NEW CIVILITY: Masked Demonstrators Temporarily Shut Down Duluth City Council Meeting Over Protective Gear for Cops. “Blue Lives Murder!”

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Should alcohol and marijuana stores be banned from opening near addiction treatment centers?

PATRICK POOLE: Chicago-Area Man Charged With Running Pro-ISIS Media Operation. “Iraqi native Ashraf al-Safoo posted threats to kill American families during Christmas.”

THE BIG LIE: Rahm Emanuel Says Justice Dept., Trump Trying to ‘Exaggerate’ Chicago’s Crime Problem. “Mayor sees ‘just a lot of political reasons that [Trump] tries to use it as an organizing tool for the rest of the Midwest’.”

Flashback: Chicago Murder Rates Down in 2017, But Still Shockingly High.

CHANGE: Former House Speaker John Boehner part of the American Cannabis Summit.

AND RETURN HIM SAFELY TO EARTH: NASA Tests Astronaut Survival Systems for Orion Splashdowns.

PIERS MORGAN: The media hates him, Hollywood hates him but every hysterical piece of abuse they throw at him just makes Trump stronger and now the Democrats are heading for a midterms disaster.

America’s liberals will respond to the shock poll in the way they respond to all things Trump – with fury, incredulity and by sticking their collective heads in the sand.

‘HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING?’ they will wail, uncontrollably.

‘WHAT THE F**K IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE WHO LIKE HIM?’ they will howl into each other’s kale salads.

‘THIS IS THE END OF PLANET EARTH!’ they will sob, in their normal understated manner.

All of which will be music to the ears of Trump, a man who absolutely revels in liberal hysteria because he knows it works for him, as this new poll proves.

The more Trump-bashers scream abuse at and about him, the more it fires up his base – and indeed, the more it fires up Trump himself.

Trump’s secret weapon is no secret, but the Left can’t help themselves.

SPENGLER: Letter to Chinese friends: We really are different. “Americans never will reconcile themselves to China’s lack of concern for individual rights, for its cruelty to so many of its citizens, and for the absence of mercy in its public affairs.”

More:

China is the world’s oldest living civilization and America is the youngest. How does a new civilization come to be in the first place? It must graft itself onto an older civilization. The American principle is that each individual is sacred, and therefore sovereign, with equal protection under the law and an equal say in governance. Ancient Israel is the wellspring of the American imagination, as I argued in a lecture to the Heritage Foundation in 2016. If China’s national epic is the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, America’s national epic is the King James Version of the Hebrew Bible. America was founded by dissenting Protestants for whom the history of Israel was a map to salvation. It was envisioned by English political theorists who projected a “Hebrew Republic” out of biblical as well as later rabbinic sources, at a time when the Jews had not yet returned to England after their 14th-century banishment, and the Jews were a tiny, scattered and apparently insignificant people.

Fascinating piece; well worth your time.

WINNING: Trump administration widens Obamacare escape hatch for red states.

YOU’LL TOTALLY BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT: Spanish-language network reporter reveals who is ‘infiltrating’ migrant caravan heading to US.

“The borders in Central American are not as strong as the U.S., which makes it possible for people from Panama and Ecuador to cross easily,” Santa Anna explained. “They cross from Costa Rica, then later go through Guatemala and eventually make it into our country.”

“Yesterday when we were traveling through Guatemala, we noticed people from El Salvador and even people from Bangladesh,” he continued.

“Can you imagine what they had to do to get here?” he said. “They infiltrated themselves in this caravan and tried to cross with the crowd. That would have benefited them greatly.”

This “caravan” is a national security concern, not an immigration issue.

WELL, THAT’S WHERE THE MONEY IS: Deficit Is Rising, So GOP Wants to Cut Social Security, Medicare.

This is from young-adult infotainment site Vox, so click at your peril.

BUT I HAD BEEN ASSURED BY THE SMARTEST MAN EVER THAT WE COULDN’T DRILL OUR WAY TO LOWER ENERGY PRICES: American Energy: Making Oil Shocks History. “Potential supply disruptions no longer stir a national conversation on thermostats and speed limits. Since 2008, U.S. oil production has more than doubled, and this year, we likely become the world’s top oil producer, passing both Saudi Arabia and Russia. U.S. natural gas production has surged almost 50%, and also now leads the world. Abundant gas is making electricity cleaner and more affordable, and enabling a resurgence in manufacturing and the good-paying jobs that come with it. Energy exports are booming—the U.S. is on pace to become a net energy exporter by 2022, significantly improving our balance of trade. A reduced dependence on energy imports has enhanced national security and strengthened U.S. leverage in foreign relations.”

It can’t be stated often enough that restrictions on fracking mean restrictions on America’s independence, national security, and foreign policy.

IF YOU PLAY BALL, BALL, I’LL TAX THE FIELD: NFL Games in London Cause Headaches for Players — and a Tax Nightmare. “Players could end up paying 60 percent in income taxes on a single game plus an additional tax in the UK.”

DON’T MEASURE THE CURTAINS JUST YET, LADY: Pelosi Argues She’s the Speaker Candidate Most ‘Appropriate for the Time.’

BUT DON’T YOU DARE CALL IT A MOB: Ex-Clinton adviser Philippe Reines says it’s OK to confront Republicans in public.

“The real thing to me,” Reines added, “[is] you have a Republican party who is giving aid and comfort to … white nationalists and they’ve become the party of white nationalists and all of their hatred. That’s a bigger deal to me than someone not getting their supper.”

You don’t have to wonder what Reines would say if it was his dinner that was ruined, and his wife who was hounded down the street.

IT BARELY QUALIFIES AS EVEN A FACADE: Kyrsten Sinema’s moderate facade wears thin.

BUT OF COURSE: Roseanne Banned, Nasty Tom Arnold Thrives.

Christian Toto:

The comic actor is the star of “The Hunt for the Trump Tapes.” The VICELAND series has Arnold searching for video or audio that will end the Trump administration. So far, the search has come up empty.

That’s not stopping him, the show or media outlets from affording him copious press coverage. And then there’s the other side of Arnold.

His Twitter feed is a non-stop assault on President Trump. Nothing uncommon there. Arnold takes it a few steps further, though. He attacked fellow actor Dean Cain as “racist” and “anti-LGBT” recently for pitching his new film, “Gosnell,” at a Christian gathering. Arnold strongly suggested new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a pedophile with zero proof to back up the claim.

Now, he’s threatening President Trump on social media.

Christian has screencaps of Arnold’s tweets, which would seem to violate Twitter’s Terms of Service. But the appeal to the company’s TOS has become, we shall say, more selective.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: The Caravan Continues and Much, Much More. “It looks like Mexico will not be stopping the caravan. On Monday, Trump told reporters on Air Force One there is no limit to how many troops he will send to the border.”

FREEDOM OF THE SEAS: Two Navy warships transit Taiwan Strait.

“USS Curtis Wilbur [DDG 54] and USS Antietam [CG 54] conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit on Oct 22, in accordance with international law. The ship transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The U.S. Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows,” said U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Nate Christensen in an email to Navy Times.

Part of the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group, the Ticonderoga-class Antietam visited South Korea’s Jeju Island last week, following its maneuvers with Royal Thai Navy vessels in the South China Sea.

Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Rob Manning said it “was certainly not the department’s intent to raise tensions” on Monday, adding that were was “coordination and contact with the appropriate nations” for the transit.

Beijing could use more reminders that their wealth is as dependent as ours is — if not more so — on free navigation of the world’s oceans.

I’M OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER WHEN DEMOCRATS CLAIMED TO BE AGAINST THIS KIND OF THING: Independent Committee Supporting Ellison Is Half Funded by Alexander Soros.

Although he does not give on the same scale as his father, Alexander Soros is still a significant donor to Democrat and progressive causes. The Washington Free Beacon reported in September that Alex had contributed almost $3 million to Democratic committees this election cycle.

Alex works as the deputy chair of the Open Society Foundations, a grant-making group that describes itself as working “to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens.” The Open Society Foundations, meanwhile, receives the bulk of its funding from George Soros.

The independent expenditure committee, calling itself the People’s Lawyer PAC, has spent the bulk its funds on polling, some of which it has published on its website.

While the intent of the committee can not be known, publishing its own polling online appears to mirror tactics detailed in a report from Politico this June describing how independent expenditure committees and PACs can manage to legally coordinate with their candidate by publishing various media in the public domain, even though explicit coordination is supposed to be prohibited by law.

In other words: Don’t get caught being too obvious about it — whatever that means in practice. More generally speaking, vague laws aren’t written for the benefit of those trying to abide by them.

YOU MEAN, ASIDE FROM THE TASTY SCHADENFREUDE? Here’s why Hillary Clinton losing her security clearance matters for the rest of us.

Frank Miniter:

Hillary Clinton should have lost her clearance back when the government found out she had classified information on her private servers. Actually, they should have done this even before that; she should have lost her security clearance when she left her public position, as secretary of state, for her private quest to get the nation’s top job.

What other employer allows former employees to access their networks? Companies commonly terminate employees email accounts and access before they even tell them they’ve been let go.

But this isn’t some private company. This is our federal government, an unfathomably large bureaucracy that has a lot of our personal information, top-secret data and so much more in its hands.

All of this should focus our attention yet again on how wide-open our government has allowed itself to become. While doing the research for my new book “Spies in Congress—Inside the Democrats’ Covered-Up Cyber Scandal” it became horrifyingly clear how open congressional offices are to insider threats.

For instance, the group of House IT aides who made up what amounted to a spy ring didn’t even have to undergo background checks to get their insider positions—jobs that allowed them to see and copy all of the emails and more from the members of Congress they worked for.

You’d be fair in thinking maybe this was by design.

AMERICA’S LONGEST WAR (NATO’S, TOO): Apparent Insider Attack Kills Czech Member of U.S.-Led Coalition in Afghanistan.

The soldier was the fourth Czech service member killed as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization mission to Afghanistan since the Central European country’s parliament approved a plan in June to nearly double its forces in Afghanistan to 390.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s attack, which comes days after the bodyguard for the governor of the southern province of Kandahar opened fire on Afghan and U.S. officials following a meeting to discuss security preparations for Saturday’s parliamentary elections.

The Taliban, the country’s largest insurgency, said it was behind Thursday’s shooting spree in Kandahar, in which a top anti-Taliban security official and the provincial governor were killed.

“Initial reports indicate the attack was committed by a member of the Afghan security forces,” the coalition said on Monday, adding that two other coalition military personnel were wounded.

What a mess.