GREAT MOMENTS IN JOURNALISM: Trump gets to decide if his transition team will have a code of ethics.

Every transition team makes up its own rules as it goes along.

If you’ll recall, the Obama Administration-elect was so concerned with the Clintons’ aptitude for ethics trouble, that it required Bill to agree to limit his activities and fundraising efforts for the family’s Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, for the length of Hillary’s tenure at State. The agreement proved worthless of course, and the White House’s willful blindness to the Clintons’ activities likely cost Hillary the election.

In any case, Trump has “cut all lobbyists” from his transition team, which seems like an improvement.

Trump Can Kill Obamacare With Or Without Help From Congress.

“Obamacare is a disaster. You know it. We all know it,” Trump said at a debate last month. “We have to repeal it and replace it with something absolutely much less expensive.”

Now that Trump will move into the Oval Office in January, the question is whether he’ll be able to completely repeal the six-year-old law that has had an impact on every aspect of the U.S. health care system.

“It’s a challenge for a Trump presidency,” says Jack Hoadley, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute. “To get a true repeal and replace through, he needs 60 votes in the Senate.” That’s the minimum number of votes needed to block Senate action through filibuster.

ObamaCare passed the Senate through reconciliation with only 51 votes. What can be done through reconciliation can surely be undone through reconciliation.

JOSH KRAUSHAAR: How Obama Inadvertently Set the Stage for Trump’s Presidency.

In­stead of of­fer­ing voters a de­tailed policy agenda, Obama won the pres­id­ency in part thanks to his iden­tity, an iden­tity that power­fully ad­dressed a his­tor­ic­al wrong. In the pro­cess, he made it pos­sible for Trump to ad­vance to the pres­id­ency on the strength of an en­tirely dif­fer­ent sort of iden­tity, one that ap­pealed to an in­tensely loy­al base of white, work­ing-class voters.

Obama’s mis­take was re­fus­ing to ac­know­ledge the im­port of the Re­pub­lic­an wave elec­tions in 2010 and 2014 and de­clin­ing to pivot to the middle, which fueled the in­tens­ity of the con­ser­vat­ive op­pos­i­tion. By spend­ing his fi­nal two years do­ing end-runs around Con­gress on im­mig­ra­tion and res­ist­ing any changes to his sig­na­ture health care law, he all but in­vited Trump’s auto­crat­ic prom­ises to fix things.

Obama and his leg­acy were among the biggest losers in Tues­day’s as­ton­ish­ing up­set. Re­pub­lic­ans will now ex­er­cise the vast powers of the pres­id­ency and con­trol the Sen­ate and the House by com­fort­able mar­gins, and they will al­most cer­tainly roll back Obama’s health care law. If Trump lives up to his pledge to ap­point a con­ser­vat­ive jur­ist to fill the Scalia va­cancy, the Su­preme Court will have a con­ser­vat­ive ma­jor­ity in the years ahead.

Read the whole thing.

FLASHBACK: The Manchurian President.

It’s a little early in his administration to draw any broad conclusions, but the evidence is clear: As a younger man, Barack Obama was kidnapped and brainwashed by evil Republican operatives, then sent deep undercover to destroy the Democratic Party and perhaps even the entire liberal worldview.

That’s the intro of a column I wrote in September of 2009. Might still be worth a chuckle or two.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN: ‘Undercover’ supporters helped deliver upset victory.

In 2008 we were assured that “shy” voters would save McCain. In 2012 we were told the same thing about Romney. But the thing to remember — and I’ve already put a sticky note up on my screen — is that the boy who cried wolf was, eventually, correct about the wolf.

TRUMP DESTROYS ELITES’ ASSUMPTIONS: Autopsy of the 2012 ‘GOP Autopsy’

The Clinton Foundation has issued a brief statement: No Refunds. #election2016 #WheresHillary

— Chris Hagen (@chrishagentb) November 9, 2016

Heh.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: You’ll need a background just to buy ammo in California.

This would be a good time to open an ammo shop near along any Interstate in Nevada or Arizona.

IT AIN’T OVER YET: Obama’s last chance of ending Israeli occupation.

President Loki still has until January 20 to create more mischief. I get the feeling that Bill Clinton’s last-minute flurry of legal (and practical) booby traps could pale in comparison.

Here it is… pic.twitter.com/u1EsKqubNm

— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) November 9, 2016

Boom.

ALL-DAY, ALL-NIGHT: PJ Media’s First Ever All Day Drunkblog.

With Stephen Kruiser, Michael Walsh, Roger Simon, Roger Kimball, David Steinberg, Tyler O’Neil, Paula Bolyard, Liz Sheld, Debra Heine and yours truly. And maybe a cameo appearance by Sammy or Dino.

BUMPED! But still no sign of Sammy or Dino.

SORRY NOT SORRY: Donna Brazile is totally not sorry for leaking CNN debate questions to Hillary Clinton.

Donna Brazile is not apologizing for leaking CNN debate questions and topics to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the Democratic primary. Her only regret, it seems, is that she got caught.

“My conscience — as an activist, a strategist — is very clear,” the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee said Monday during a satellite radio interview with liberal activist and SiriusXM host Joe Madison. She added that “if I had to do it all over again, I would know a hell of a lot more about cybersecurity.”

In other words, Brazile would have made sure that her improper disclosures — which prompted CNN to drop her as an analyst — would not show up in hacked emails published by WikiLeaks. The lesson, apparently, is to pick up the phone or perhaps meet John Podesta in a dark alleyway.

Business as usual, in other words, but with a bigger rug to sweep it under.

GOTV: Donald Trump’s ground game may be more robust than you think.

For all the grief it gets, the RNC has done yeoman’s work putting Trump’s ground game together for him.

VOX, EXPLAINED.

POLLING: Psychic Scottish goat predicts next US president.

NEW YOU CAN USE: The Science Behind “Earworms,” aka Songs That Get Stuck In Your Head.

Pacing, the team found, is crucial. Many commonly cited earworms have upbeat, danceable tempos, but are still slow enough to easily track. Most earworms follow the melodic preferences of Western pop music, which in turn follows many of the melodic contour patterns in nursery rhymes. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” for instance, has a rising pitch in the first phrase that falls in the second, a common trait of earworms. (Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger” was specifically called out by the study for this.)

But childlike simplicity and a peppy tempo aren’t enough to make an earworm. A true earworm changes its game up with at least one unusual interval structure, defined by the study as “unexpected leaps,” repeated notes, or any other idiosyncratic tick in the song’s composition that makes it memorable, in addition to catchy. The opening riffs of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” and the Doobie Brothers’ “China Grove” are good examples of this.

Now how about we research for a cure?

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Here’s How Facebook Is Teaming With News Outlets for Election Day.

RELATED? Could Facebook’s Algorithm Tip an Election?

SKYNET SMILES: Google’s DeepMind turns to StarCraft II after conquering Go.

“DeepMind is on a scientific mission to push the boundaries of AI, developing programs that can learn to solve any complex problem without needing to be told how,” DeepMind said.

“Games are the perfect environment in which to do this, allowing us to develop and test smarter, more flexible AI algorithms quickly and efficiently, and also providing instant feedback on how we’re doing through scores.”

DeepMind added that it has also used 2D games on Atari and complex games such as Go to test its AI system.

“The skills required for an agent to progress through the environment and play StarCraft well could ultimately transfer to real-world tasks,” it claimed.

That’s what I’m afraid of.

BILL WHITTLE: Clinton versus a Turnip.

THE INTERNET OF HACKABLE THINGS: Researchers hack Philips Hue smart bulbs from the sky.

Researchers were able to take control of some Philips Hue lights using a drone. Based on an exploit for the ZigBee Light Link Touchlink system, white hat hackers were able to remotely control the Hue lights via drone and cause them to blink S-O-S in Morse code.

The drone carried out the attack from more than a thousand feet away. Using the exploit, the researchers were able to bypass any prohibitions against remote access of the networked light bulbs, and then install malicious firmware. At that point the researchers were able to block further wireless updates, which apparently made the infection irreversible.

“There is no other method of reprogramming these [infected] devices without full disassemble (which is not feasible). Any old stock would also need to be recalled, as any devices with vulnerable firmware can be infected as soon as power is applied,” according to the researchers.

The researchers notified Philips of the vulnerability. The company then delivered a patch for it in October.

It wasn’t long ago that claiming “Drones are controlling my lightbulbs!” would have gotten you locked up for your own protection.

IT STARTS WITH “SOCIAL” AND ENDS WITH “ISM” Once the richest country in South America, Venezuela now has the world’s highest inflation rate and is plagued by hunger and violent crime. How did this happen?

BROKEN ARROW: Nuclear weapon missing since 1950 ‘may have been found’

KURT SCHLICHTER: Stop Hillary.

I was not happy to vote for Donald Trump, but Hillary Clinton must be stopped. She and her coterie of soft-handed, Chardonnay-sipping fascists are, in equal parts, malignant and stupid, and many of us believe her hate-fueled pogrom against normal Americans will stand a significant chance of leading to real civil conflict. I’ve seen with my own eyes what horror awaits at the bottom of the slippery slope of corruption and oppression, and I’ve warned of it again and again. This dumb woman’s personal psychodramas are poised to fuel a rocket sled ride downward to disaster.

We have to stop her. We have to elect Donald Trump.

How screwed are we when that’s the best case scenario?

You fight with the army you have.

HMM:

Haven't gotten why New Mexico remains close. Possible that established Latino vote not reacting same way to Trump as more recent immigrants? pic.twitter.com/Qfi5VTG0E7

— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) November 7, 2016

THE DNC-MEDIA COMPLEX: WikiLeaks Show Washington Post Writer Asked DNC For Anti-Trump Research.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank appears to have asked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to do the majority of the research for a negative column he wrote about Donald Trump in April 2016.

Milbank’s column was titled, “The Ten Plagues of Trump,” and featured a list of “outrageous things” said by Trump. One of the “plagues” listed by Milbank, for example, was “Blood” and centered around a quote from Trump about Megyn Kelly: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

Internal DNC emails suggest Milbanks asked for — and then leaned heavily on — DNC opposition research on Trump for the article.

Read the whole thing.