JOSEPH BOTTUM: What explains the sudden mania for toppling statues?

The glory of the Internet is that it allows like-minded people to find one another. And the horror of the Internet is that it allows like-minded people to find one another. Coin collectors, baseball-card enthusiasts, and used-book readers have all benefited from the opportunities offered by online connection. So have neo-Nazis, child-pornographers, and Communist agitators. Where they were once connected only by the sickly sweet smell of the ink from the mimeograph machine clumping away on the kitchen table, the forces of anger now have instantaneous links.

And that instantaneity allows a radicalizing more rapid than the world has ever seen. Back in a 1999 study called “The Law of Group Polarization,” legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein suggested that discussion among people with similar views causes a hardening of opinion. “In a striking empirical regularity,” he wrote, “deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments.” It hardly matters whether the groups are pro-gun, pro-abortion, or pro-anarchy. With sufficient group discussion on one side of an issue, everyone involved takes a step toward the extreme: The mildly supportive become strongly supportive, the strongly supportive become wildly supportive, and the wildly supportive become fanatical psychopaths.

These are Heinlein’s Crazy Years — we just live in them.

BUCKET BOMB: Explosion Rocks London Underground During Rush Hour Commute.

HEH: Portland probe finds Uber used software to evade 16 government officials.

When Uber began operating in Portland in December 2014, it did not have any permits, so it used a software tool it had created called Greyball to block regulators from booking rides. Uber stopped using the software after it received approval to operate its service in Portland in April 2015.

The city imposed no fines or other penalties but transportation officials have recommended that the city ramp up enforcement efforts.

“We have ensured that no attempts to evade regulators or deny service to riders” will be allowed in the future, Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman said in a statement.

You have to wonder if Portland authorities understand that the app economy allows for almost endless ways to avoid overbearing regulatory schemes.

GOOD LUCK: Implementing the New Afghanistan Policy.

The U.S. approach needs to address: 1) the situation in Afghanistan itself (political, economic, development and military); 2) the role of Pakistan as an enabler of the Taliban and other violent groups and as a possible facilitator of peace; 3) the regional context: other neighbors and key players who can help or hinder a peace process and the India-Pakistan rivalry, which adds a nuclear dimension; 4) the important role of U.S. allies and partners in Afghanistan and in forging a path to peace; and, 5) the objective of achieving a negotiated political settlement which incorporates the Taliban.

American officials stress that the United States is not going to set “artificial” deadlines but will focus on achieving desired conditions on the ground. They also highlight that this strategy integrates Afghanistan into an overarching policy for the region. This will include intense engagement with Pakistan so that it takes decisive action against terrorist groups and helps get the Taliban to the negotiating table. The regional approach will also involve efforts reduce Pakistan-India tensions, including trying to lessen nuclear dangers from that rivalry. This is no easy task set.

Difficult — or impossible?

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: London Terror, NorK Missile, Free Speech and Much, Much More.

LEMMINGS: Democrats Follow Bernie Sanders Off a Cliff.

Matthew Continetti:

The “Medicare for All Act of 2017” would repeal Obamacare, along with most other private and public insurance, and replace it with a government-run, one-size-fits-all, centrally directed system of reimbursement for medical expenses. Sanders, who honeymooned in the Soviet Union, holds the same opinion of health insurance as he does antiperspirants: “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different sneakers when children are hungry in this country.”

Senators Harris, Booker, Gillibrand, and Warren, who in addition to cosponsoring the bill may soon be fighting each other, as well as Sanders, for the Democratic nomination, are generals re-enacting the last war. They saw how well Sanders did against Clinton, they have marched in the anti-Trump “resistance” movement, and they want to inoculate themselves from accusations of ideological heresy.

Which is why they embrace the thin-skinned and irritable senator whose wife is under federal investigation. What the copycats forget is the future in politics is never a straight-line projection of the present, much less of the bizarre circumstances surrounding the 2016 Democratic primary. “Medicare for All” might strike Warren &co. today as legislation worthy of support for reasons both moral and self-interested. In time, however, palling around with Bernie Bros may become a liability.

For one thing, the policy is remarkably vague. “Mr. Sanders did not say how he would pay for his bill,” writes Robert Pear of the New York Times. “Aides said he would issue a list of financing options.” The “options” are not included in the bill—but they are enough to raise the hair on the back of one’s neck.

The experiences of Vermont, whose single-payer system collapsed several years ago, and of California and New Jersey, whose true-blue legislatures can’t carry single payer across the finish line, and of Colorado, which voted overwhelmingly against a similar plan last year, suggest the tax increases necessary to sustain expanded coverage frighten even Democrats.

Nancy Pelosi won’t be seen anywhere near Sanders’ bill, and whatever else you might say about her, her political instincts are still sharp.

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: It’s Tough Getting Crude Oil From an Italian Olive Grove.

Val d’Agri — more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) southeast of Eni’s Rome headquarters — has the potential to become Western Europe’s biggest onshore field. But output was shut for seven of the past 18 months amid a probe into allegations of illicit waste-water disposal and a subsequent crude leak.

To help get Val d’Agri back on track and to more effectively tap its 1 billion barrels of reserves, Eni dispatched a 56-year-old veteran of the company’s drilling campaigns in Libya and Kazakhstan. One of Walter Rizzi’s main jobs is to win back public support in the mountainous region of Basilicata, where some locals aren’t convinced the economic boost from oil royalties is worth the environmental risk.

“Being here is strategic for us for several reasons,” said Rizzi, vice president of Eni’s special project for Val d’Agri. “The oil quality is extremely high, meaning the refinery cost is low, and the potential is huge.”

It wasn’t so long ago that the world was about to run out of oil, and now it seems there’s virtually nowhere that isn’t awash in the stuff. So much so that Italian mountaindwellers can afford to turn their noses up at low royalty payments for sitting on what might be Western Europe’s “biggest onshore field.”

NO FELLOW: Chelsea Manning Disinvited as Harvard Fellow After Protest from CIA Officials.

RUBIO: Trump Never ‘Gung-Ho on Kicking DREAMers Out’ of the Country.

WAIT… WHAT? Pro-Trump Book Mentioned As ‘Neo-Nazi Children’s Book’ Written By Asian Guy.

IT’S A “BEAST”: Tesla plans to unveil its all-electric semi truck on October 26th.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. It Appears the Leader of Philly’s Democrats Is a Total Twatwaffle.

We’ve long suspected it, but Philadelphia now has direct evidence in its hands that the leader of the city’s Democrats, Congressman Robert A. Brady colluded in a scheme to pay off a senior municipal court judge to drop out of a challenge to his seat for re-election. It gets worse… it’s to get rid of a black guy.

In a bombshell article in the Inquirer, senior Municipal Court judge Jimmie Moore has agreed to resign. As part of his plea deal, he admits to accepting $90,000 in payments from Brady to drop out of the race.

The payments have to do with dissatisfied Democrats who believe that “racial math” has made it possible to elect a minority in the PA-1 Congressional District. Brady helped shape this district to compact as many white Philadelphians as possible who don’t live in the Northeast. In BradyWorld™, PA-1 is for white people. PA-2 for the longest time was represented by Chaka Fattah (who is now in Federal lockup), and PA-3 was for Northeast Republicans [now a Democratic seat occupied by Rep. Brendan Boyle].

Why are Democrat-run cities such cesspits of corruption and racism?

RED ON RED: Sean Hannity blames Mitch McConnell for DACA Deal.

HERO: Meet the Epic 13-Year-Old Boy Who Used an Air Mattress to Save 17 of His Neighbors During Hurricane Harvey.

JOHN B. JUDIS: I argued that demographics favored the Democrats. I was wrong.

Phillips writes in his book, Brown Is the New White, “progressive people of color” already combine with “progressive whites” to make up 51 percent of voting-age Americans. “And that majority,” he adds, “is getting bigger every single day.” The strategy prescription logically follows. Rejecting the notion that Democrats must woo Trump voters as a “fool’s errand,” Phillips says the party must be “race-conscious and not race-neutral or color-blind.” Demographics are destiny. “The concerns of people of color,” he concludes, “should be driving politics today and into the future.”

This isn’t a new argument, of course—and I bear some responsibility for it. The book I co-wrote in 2002 with demographer Ruy Teixeira, The Emerging Democratic Majority, laid out an overly optimistic forecast of the party’s prospects in an increasingly diverse America. By and large, Teixeira still holds to the view that the growth of minority populations will provide a long-term “boost to the left.” In his new book, fittingly titled The Optimistic Leftist, Teixeira notes that by the 2050s, eleven of the 15 largest states will be “majority-minority.”

On one level, there’s no arguing with the math. If you take the percentage of Americans that the U.S. census defines as “minorities” and project their past voting habits into the next decade and beyond, you’ll come up with a very sunny version of the Democrats’ prospects. There are only two problems with this line of thinking, but they’re pretty big ones. For starters, the census prediction of a “majority-minority” America—slated to arrive in 2044—is deeply flawed. And so is the notion that ethnic minorities will always and forever continue to back Democrats in Obama-like numbers.

Democrats need ideas, not colors.

SCHUMER, PELOSI ON TRUMP DINNER: ‘We Agreed to Enshrine the Protections of DACA Into Law Quickly.’

It isn’t often easy to remember which party holds Capitol Hill.

IF ONLY THERE WERE SOME SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE MEANS OF KILLING THEM IN LARGE NUMBERS: They survived the hurricane. Now a ‘mosquito explosion’ could be coming.

TARGET: BELARUS? Russian war games aim to head off another color revolution.

SOONER, PLEASE: Pentagon Preps to Destroy Enemy ICBMs in 2030.

The Missile Defense Agency’s first-ever successful intercept of an ICBM target using a Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, using the kinetic force of an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) to destroy the target, is paving the way toward advanced future kill vehicles able to discern and attack multiple approaching threats, industry and Pentagon officials said.

During the test, an ICBM-class target was launched from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a Missile Defense Agency statement said.

“Multiple sensors provided target acquisition and tracking data to the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communication (C2BMC) system,” the statement added.

The intercept, taking place over the Pacific Ocean, used X-band radar to track the target for using a fire control solution to destroy the ICBM.

All of this is seen by developers as a crucial step toward a new future system, called Multi-Object Kill Vehicle, or MOKV. It is designed to release from a Ground Based Interceptor and destroy approaching Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs — and also take out decoys traveling alongside the incoming missile threat.

Better still to destroy missiles in their vulnerable boost phase — but that’s also trickier still.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: iPhone X’s Facial Recognition Fail—and Other Takeaways from Apple’s Big Launch Event.

3D facial recognition will get really useful when it’s on both sides of the phone, so that the camera will be able to perform digital lighting tricks far beyond even the new “Portrait Lighting” feature.

BETSY MCCAUGHEY: Democrats’ latest bid to rig election rules.

Democrats claim Wisconsin’s election map puts them at a disadvantage by packing their voters into too few election districts, “wasting” their votes and allowing Republicans to win the majority of districts.

But the real problem isn’t an unfair map. It’s that Wisconsin Democrats are concentrated in cities. In many states, Democrats tend to win urban voters and do less well with suburban and rural voters. Wisconsin Democrats want the lines redrawn so their urban voters can capture a majority of the state’s legislative seats — and they’re asking the Supreme Court to help them.

It’s a brazen political gambit disguised as fairness. They claim to be victims of gerrymandering — drawing election districts to favor one party. But they’re not opposed to gerrymandering. They just want it to favor them.

They hope a Supreme Court victory will restore their political fortunes after the 2020 Census, when states have to redraw their electoral maps.

If Democrats prevail in court, the nation’s political map could change significantly after the Census, with many statehouses flipped to Democratic control.

Give credit where it’s due: Democrats play hardball, and they play it for keeps.

FLASHBACK FROM ANDREW MCCARTHY: Where Would Trump Be If He Had Run as What He Is: the Amnesty Candidate?

MEGAN MCARDLE: The Latest (Dim, Distant) Hope for Health-Care Reform.

The latest bedside miracle is the Graham-Cassidy-Heller proposal, which would cut spending, cap spending, and shift spending away from states that expanded Medicaid to those that haven’t. At the same time, it would give states considerable discretion to design local solutions for health-care provision, something that, as I’ve noted before, is likely to be the key to getting us out of the morass in which we’re currently mired with Obamacare.

Is this the turn? Has the fever broken? Or is this just a stalling tactic, before more agonizing months and years, before the patient is finally pronounced truly and utterly dead?

Well, the political math certainly looks difficult. Republicans hold a majority in both houses, but their Senate majority is narrow enough to give them precious little wiggle room when it comes to passing a bill. Considering that Rand Paul has already been pretty negative about the bill, that wiggle will have to be more like a tremor: If Rand won’t back the proposal, they’ll need either Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski, who have so far proven unwilling to vote for previous iterations of GOP reform ideas.

Moreover, they’re going to have to shimmy pretty quick. This bill is not, needless to say, going to garner Democratic votes. Democrats don’t want to do anything to Obamacare except pour more money into it.

When all you have is somebody else’s checkbook, everything looks like a spending problem.

BRUCE BAWER: Rewarding Terrorists in the Nordic Countries.

HMM: Trump Denies He Made A Deal With Democrats On DREAMer Protections.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): A lot of folks have come out of meetings with Trump thinking they had a deal, only to find they were wrong. That may be what happened here, or the Dems may have been trying to spin the press coverage. Stay tuned and don’t believe every headline.