DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: The controversial solution Long Beach has picked to battle shoplifters.

Tired of rampant shoplifting scaring away citizens and shoppers, Long Beach is trying to force stores to add staff and reduce dependence on self-checkout.

The beachfront city, with a population of around half a million, last month started requiring major food and pharmacy retailers to do more to stop theft. So far, the measures have led to a heated debate and longer lines.

Employees like the new law. The retail chains warn that the restrictions could backfire. Shoppers are confused.

The city’s “Safe Stores are Staffed Stores” ordinance is the first of its kind in the country. It requires large stores to increase the number of employees relative to self-checkout stands and also puts a limit on the number of items and types of goods that can be rung up at self-checkout.

Since this is California, I’m forced to assume that the only thing Long Beach hasn’t tried is cracking down on shoplifters.

In any case, self-checkout is for high-trust communities, and those seem to be in short supply on the West Coast.

THEY’RE JUST DOING THE JOBS CHICAGO POLICE AREN’T ALLOW TO DO: ICE Arrests Double Murderer, Thwarts Chicago Would-Be Shooter.

STOLEN: The Algorithm That Rigged the Census: How One Bureaucrat Stole the House and Billions in Funding.

The 2020 census was marketed as an “actual enumeration,” a neutral count of people for apportionment and funding. It was not. The same official who helped block a basic citizenship question in 2018, John M. Abowd, then the Census Bureau’s Chief Scientist, pushed through a new, opaque methodology in 2020 called differential privacy. The new system deliberately injected mathematical noise into every block count in America, turning the census from a headcount into a model with knobs. The knob that mattered most was a single parameter, epsilon, a secrecy shroud known only to a small inner circle. Abowd argued that a single added question about citizenship posed an intolerable risk to data quality because there was, he said, not enough time to test it. Then he rushed an untested algorithm that altered every count in every neighborhood. The irony is so sharp it cuts: the man who warned that one question might distort the census approved a method that guaranteed distortion.

Start with the record. On January 19, 2018, Abowd sent Commerce a technical memo urging rejection of a citizenship question. He then testified for several days in federal court. The transcript, nearly 700 pages, cemented a narrative that any citizenship question would degrade data and impede participation. The courts cited this drumbeat of doubt, and the question was blocked. The administration lost the public fight. But the inside fight over how to publish the data was only beginning. Abowd immediately advanced a quiet revolution in disclosure avoidance, adopting differential privacy for the first time ever in a US census. That choice, made outside the glare that attended the citizenship question, had far more sweeping consequences.

Read the whole thing.

Plus: “If all this is true, President Trump’s call for a mid-decade census is more than justified.”

BUT HE COULD HAVE GONE ON FOR 500: Brandon Straka Sums Up Democratic Socialism’s Failures in Five Minutes.

BUILD IT AND THEY WILL WON’T COME: DHS unveils plans for nearly 1,500 miles of border wall.

EXCLUSIVE: Israeli Reservist Describes Oct. 7, Hezbollah Strike on Northern Border.

SCOTT PINSKER: The Upside of Losing: Why NOT Winning the Nobel Peace Prize Is One of Donald Trump’s Greatest Victories.

SNAPPED: New Mark Sanchez video shows erratic behavior before alleged attack on elderly truck driver.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: He Ate His WHAT? “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn how not to spend a couple of days in the woods, when to quit running from the police, and why two female North Carolina police needed to call in a civilian for backup.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Defense budgets on both sides of the Atlantic reshape space industry.

In the United States, investors say a similar surge is underway as companies position themselves for Golden Dome, the Pentagon’s planned next-generation missile defense architecture that is expected to rely heavily on satellite assets.

“I think that’s going to be a big driver for how space-based assets will be acquired, not just for Golden Dome, but how they will be acquired for other programs as well,” said Kirk Konert, managing partner at AE Industrial Partners, a private equity firm with holdings in Firefly Aerospace, York Space Systems, Sierra Space, Redwire, and All.Space.

Firefly, which went public earlier this year, announced this week that it plans to acquire SciTec, a defense analytics company. The acquisition is intended to expand Firefly’s footprint in national security programs, including Golden Dome.

“The current environment is creating opportunities for new entrants in the commercial space sector,” Konert said. “It’s providing a big opportunity for our portfolio companies and investors like us.”

If you think missile defense is expensive, try losing a city.

IT’S TIME FOR VICTORIA TAFT’S West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Antifa Gaslighters ACTIVATE!

BREAKING: Mass Federal Layoffs Begin.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: RS reveals tax inflation adjustments for 2026. “The One Big Beautiful Bill raised the standard tax deduction for married couples from $30,000 to $31,500 for tax year 2025, and for single taxpayers from $15,000 to $15,750. For tax year 2026, the standard deduction will increase to $32,200 for married couples, $16,100 for individuals and $24,150 for heads of household.”

FUNNY HOW THAT WORKS:

Wait. You mean all it took was for the president to say he'd send in the national guard if the local and state police didn't do their jobs for the state and local police to do their jobs? https://t.co/d0U0M6iV98

— RBe (@RBPundit) October 10, 2025

On the other hand, why is Pritzker suddenly so desperate to keep the National Guard away? Let’s see if they set bail high enough to matter, or file serious charges.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: California Ignores Detainer and Releases Serial Criminal Illegal Alien; He Kills 6.

HE ISN’T WRONG: Dershowitz says he will campaign for GOP in 2026 midterms: ‘Totally frightened’ if Dems gain control. “It’s because I’m totally frightened if the Democrats were to gain control of either House. Who they would appoint as chair people? Who they would put in the position of inquisitors, and how they would deny rights to people, and how they would introduce a kind of McCarthyism that we haven’t seen since I was a college student in the 1950s?”

IT’S (D)IFFERENT NOW BECAUSE REASONS: Washington Post Suddenly Decides Prosecuting Political Enemies is a Bad Idea. “After eight years of cheering on Trump lawfare as the saving of the republic, the Washington Post has suddenly decided that prosecuting your political opponents is a bad idea. Much like the sudden calls for unity after Butler and Charlie Kirk’s assassination, there’s every reason to be skeptical of these rapid and rapidly passing revelations. But it does show what it takes to even begin to break through the fanatical mindset that led to the Mueller and Jack Smith vendettas.”

Related: “James charged Trump with nonsense; Trump charged James with a verifiable crime.”

UPDATE:

Obviously the infrequency of prosecutions does not create an immunity from prosecution. But the relevant standard is whether Democrats would prosecute a Republican who they found had committed this type of fraud. And the answer to this is also obvious. https://t.co/S0Bk1LJPcF

— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) October 10, 2025

And from the replies: “The current admin has already found enough alleged infractions among its top political opponents that one suspects the base rate is pretty high and nobody’s looked.”

Yep.

WORST. HITLER. EVER. Israeli Town to Name New Soccer Stadium After Trump. “Eli Dukorski, the mayor of Kiryat Bialik, near Haifa, announces plans to name the city’s new soccer field after US President Donald Trump, in recognition of his ‘significant contribution to the release of our hostages.'”

HMM: Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software under investigation after railroad incidents.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday that it would investigate how Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving software handles railroad crossings as part of a wide-ranging investigation of incidents where the agency said Tesla vehicles have violated traffic safety laws.

NHTSA said it was launching the investigation of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software after receiving complaints from drivers, including reports of vehicles driving through red lights or on the wrong side of the road. The agency said the investigation relates to all Tesla vehicles equipped with FSD, or 2.9 million vehicles.

The agency said its investigation would look at the software’s performance at railroad crossings, which was the subject of an NBC News investigation published in September.

Tesla’s FSD supposedly has a better safety record now than human drivers, but just like humans, it isn’t without its little quirks.

ROBERT SPENCER: Gazans Celebrate Peace Deal with a Chant That Should Raise Eyebrows, But Won’t.

DEVASTATING:

I don’t know how you could watch this video and not conclude that Abigail Spanberger is a sociopath pic.twitter.com/TXMU8Mh5Mv

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) October 10, 2025

There’s so much to like about Winsome-Sears, but this is maybe the best I’ve seen her.

As for Spanberger… I’m not sure what to say — aside from “sociopath” — about someone able to so studiously ignore what Winsome-Sears was saying.

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS ENJOYING A FULL SHIATSU MASSAGE: It Turns Out Gun Control Groups Only Oppose Some ‘Gun Violence’…Depending Who’s Being Targeted.

NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU DESPISE THE MEDIA…

They buried this at the very bottom… https://t.co/RksG2zODbN pic.twitter.com/1VqgDDLfpA

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) October 9, 2025

…it isn’t enough.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Give Peace a Chance. “There has been an abundance of bad news in the last month. Even though this good news was necessary because of horrible tragedy, it’s worth reveling in for a while.”

HMM: Former GOP election official buys Dominion Voting Systems, promises ‘paper-based transparency.’

Dominion Voting Systems has reportedly been sold to a company run by a former Republican election official. Dominion, one of the largest election equipment providers, came into the spotlight during the 2020 election when questions were raised about the company’s machines. The company has won several settlements with figures and media outlets over claims that Dominion’s machines were to blame for Trump’s loss.

A person familiar with the purchase told Axios that Liberty Vote, a Missouri-based company owned by Scott Leiendecker, had bought Dominion for an undisclosed sum. Leiendecker created a software program in 2011 that focuses on enabling election workers to check in voters at polling locations and verify voters. The company, KNOWiNK, is described as the “nation’s leading provider of electronic poll books” and is said to be used by more than a third of US states.

In the wake of the 2000 election, then-Missouri secretary of state Matt Blunt, a Republican, appointed Leiendecker to a role investigating St Louis’ elections administration. Blunt later appointed Leiendecker to be St Louis’ Republican election director when Blunt served as governor.

Liberty Vote officials gave Axios a statement from Nevada’s Democratic secretary of state, Cisco Aguilar, who described Leiendecker as “open, honest and transparent.”

Leiendecker told the outlet that his company is “committed to delivering election technology that prioritizes paper-based transparency, security and simplicity so that voters can be assured that every ballot is filled-in accurately and fairly counted.”

Paper ballots already do all that.