LIVE BLOG: Election Night 2024.

Pour yourself a glass of something nice and join us.

HMM:

🚨 #BREAKING: SEVERAL polling locations in Georgia are now being evacuated due to BOMB THREATS, forcing voting at these locations to be SUSPENDED

ELECTION INTERFERENCE!

VOTING HOURS MUST BE EXTENDED! pic.twitter.com/z1JExTRtlI

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) November 5, 2024

OH: President Biden Won’t Attend Kamala’s Election Night Watch Party. “Harris’ election night watch party is being held at her alma mater, Howard University, which is located in Washington, D.C., less than two miles from the White House.”

THEY EVEN STOLE THE NAME: China to unveil J-35A stealth fighter jet as air force aims to match US aerial power.

ROUNDUP: Election Chicanery Update: Is It Happening? Sure Looks Like It.

WIN OR LOSE THERE’S A Looming Political Earthquake.

If it weren’t for the election season swamping news coverage, odds are more people would be talking about the revelation that, to quote a Bloomberg headline, “The World Bank Somehow Lost Track of at Least $24 Billion.” In fact, that may understate the reality: the World Bank’s “accounting gap” could be as big as $41 billion. The missing funds in question were for “climate finance” projects, “financed by taxpayer dollars from its member countries, the biggest being the US.”

According to the Oxfam report that was the source for the Bloomberg story, “There is no clear public record showing where this money went or how it was used, which makes any assessment of its impacts impossible.” It is possible that much, maybe even most, of the missing money went to the intended people and purposes. But only the hopelessly naïve would dismiss the probability of rampant waste, malfeasance, graft, and outright theft as explanations for that “gap.” Spending of such magnitude and velocity with sloppy oversight is an invitation to thieves.

But the oversight scandal at the World Bank is chump change compared with the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and its massive planned “climate finance” program. The misnamed IRA is, in the words of its advocates, the “largest climate policy in US history.” [emphasis added] The law’s ambitions dwarf those of the World Bank. By various estimates, the IRA will lead to some $3 trillion in direct spending on grants, subsidies, and the like, plus another $3 trillion in related spending induced by mandates and rules. For perspective, that’s far more than the cost of Obamacare, and even more than the $4 trillion the U.S. spent (inflation adjusted) to fight World War II.

It makes zero difference which side you’re on regarding the urgency of climate change: the associated policies and spending are almost entirely about trying to create an “energy transition.” Nor does it matter what you think about whether such a transition is sensible (it isn’t): the sheer immensity of IRA spending represents a “whole of government” opportunity for waste, abuse, and fraud on an unprecedented scale.

Just like the 2009 “stimulus” that Barack Obama put Biden in charge of, “waste, abuse, and fraud” was the whole point.

The only thing that matters is getting money out of the Treasury and into the hands of the well-connected.

A COCKINESS-FREE SNEAK PREVIEW: All the Glorious Things a Trump 47 Administration Will Do. “‘POTUS-for-life,’ you ask, ‘can he really do that?’ What more trusted news source is there than Oprah Winfrey?”

REMINDER: Ignore the exit polls. And vote.

This is a great point. Exit polls have one utility: studying single silos within the electorate well after the election is over. They are totally incapable of predicting election results on election day. The science required to make them do that is as impossible as cold fusion. https://t.co/kC8hFttYLN

— Brad Todd (@BradOnMessage) November 5, 2024

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Kamala Harris Confused By Process Where She Needs To Get Votes To Be Selected https://t.co/SpaxZbzZWn pic.twitter.com/NHa3uNhDqY

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) November 5, 2024

Checks out.

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS POOLSIDE WITH AN UMBRELLA DRINK: Study Finds That 2024 Campaign News Coverage Has Been the Worst in History.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: The average age of U.S. homebuyers jumps to 56—homes are ‘wildly unaffordable’ for young people, real estate expert says.

The average age of homebuyers is now 56, up from 49 in 2023, according to the National Association of Realtors’ annual state-of-the-market report released Monday. That’s a historic high, up from an average age in the low-to-mid 40s in the early 2010s.

The median age of first-time buyers also rose from 35 to 38, while the share of first-timers dropped from 32% to 24% of all buyers for the year ending July 2024. That marks the lowest percentage since NAR started tracking the metric in 1981.

“In my two decades in the mortgage business, I’ve never seen a more difficult time for millennials to purchase a home,” says Bob Driscoll, senior vice president and director of residential lending at Massachusetts-based bank Rockland Trust.

That’s largely due to rising homeownership costs, he says. The median U.S. home price is now $435,000, per NAR — up 39% since 2020 — while the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate has more than doubled to over 6% in that time.

That 39% increase doesn’t include skyrocketing insurance costs or property taxes.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK: Queens GOP Judicial Candidate Looks to Clean Up the Bench in NYC.

BATTLESWARM BLOG: 2024 Pre-Election LinkSwarm. “Democrats undermined by radical agenda. If Kamala Harris loses, she can reflect on her party’s mania for progressive ideas on immigration, policing and race.”

EXCLUSIVE: Election Is ‘Liberty or Death’ Scenario for Biden-Harris’s Political Prisoners.

THE BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION VS CLEAN ENERGY: Constellation Energy, nuclear stocks plummet after regulators block Amazon power deal.

Constellation Energy stock (CEG) fell 12.5% Monday amid a broader decline in nuclear power stocks following the US government’s rejection of another Big Tech nuclear power agreement late Friday.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejected a proposal from a grid operator, PJM, to ramp up the amount of power supplied through the grid from Talen Energy (TLN) to an Amazon (AMZN) artificial intelligence data center. Talen said in a statement on Sunday it believes the FERC “erred” in its ruling, adding the company is “evaluating our options, with a focus on commercial solutions.”

Just yesterday: Endangered bees stop Meta’s plan for nuclear-powered AI data center.

SEEMS A LITTLE… INSURRECTION-Y:

UPDATE: Tweet deleted because the quote couldn’t be sourced. The closest was a statement from last month that was hedged on a stolen election.

My apologies for running it.

FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL: Street Chaos Imminent? Consider the Post-Election Anarchy of 2016.

BILL WHITTLE: The Outside, Inside. “Bill Whittle manages to make sense of the shocking realignment that we are seeing happening right before our eyes. It’s no longer about Republicans vs Democrats or Conservatives vs Liberals: the new reality is that this is an election pitting the Insiders against the Outsiders. To prove his point, Bill takes a look at the last TWENTY presidential elections to discover a shocking pattern that has been hiding in plain sight all along.”

CHRISTIAN ADAMS: It’s Not 2020 Anymore: Go Vote. “We should celebrate. Over the last four years, significant improvements have made these 2024 elections better than the fiasco of 2020.”

Read the whole thing. And go vote.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Russia Suspected of Plotting to Send Incendiary Devices on U.S.-Bound Planes.

Western security officials say they believe that two incendiary devices, shipped via DHL, were part of a covert Russian operation that ultimately aimed to start fires aboard cargo or passenger aircraft flying to the U.S. and Canada, as Moscow steps up a sabotage campaign against Washington and its allies.

The devices ignited at DHL logistics hubs in July, one in Leipzig, Germany, and another in Birmingham, England. The explosions set off a multinational race to find the culprits.

Now investigators and spy agencies in Europe have figured out how the devices—electric massagers implanted with a magnesium-based flammable substance—were made and concluded that they were part of a wider Russian plot, according to security officials and people familiar with the probe.

Security officials say the electric massagers, sent to the U.K. from Lithuania, appear to have been a test run to figure out how to get such incendiary devices aboard planes bound for North America.

Lithuanian police arrested a suspect who sent four incendiary devices, including two from a DHL shop in the capital Vilnius, a European law-enforcement official said. The suspect identified himself as Igor Prudnikov, but his real name is Alexander Suranovas, the official said. Investigators said they believe he was used as a proxy by Russian spy services.

Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office said authorities there have arrested four people in connection with the fires and charged them with participating in sabotage or terrorist operations on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency.

Previously: Three guilty as court finds Russia-controlled group downed airliner.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: E-Day. “It’s going to be a busy one. If you have never experienced on of our live blogs, you’re missing out. We even made the debates fun. Like minded people, adult beverages, no dress code — it’s a great way to either commiserate or celebrate.”

NICE WORK:

CHAIRMAN WHATLEY: “Early this morning we learned that Republican poll watchers in Philadelphia, York, Westmoreland, Allegheny, Lehigh, Cambria, Wyoming, and Lackawanna Counties were being turned away.”

RNC Attorneys were deployed. GOP poll watchers are now in the building.

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) November 5, 2024

WORST. HITLER. EVER. 50 Orthodox Rabbis Endorse Donald Trump.

Author of the best-selling book, “The War Against the Bible,” Rabbi Elie Mischel explained, “Understandably, most rabbis are afraid to make political statements that might anger some of their congregants. But this election is different. If Kamala Harris becomes president instead of Donald Trump, the consequences could be catastrophic: arms embargoes on Israel, devastating sanctions on Israelis opposed to a Palestinian state, and worst of all, more dead Jews. This is not about Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. It’s about the safety of Israel. If rabbis can’t find the courage to speak up now as we fight for our very existence, when will they?”

Other Orthodox rabbis explained their endorsement of President Trump.

Rabbi Pesach Lerner, President Emeritus of the Coalition for Jewish Values explained, “Why do Orthodox Rabbis endorse Former President Trump? Simple. He’s good for Israel. He’s good for the US economy. He’s good for family values. He’s good for US energy. He’s good for a strong and safe America. He’s good for American and world stability. The better question is, how could Orthodox Rabbis, and others, not endorse him?”

Indeed.

ROBERT SPENCER: Will Ferrell Threatens Voters: Vote for Kamala or Else. “Ferrell has reinforced the off-putting aspects of his public persona by publishing a new self-conscious advertisement for his own alleged funniness, in which he issues an unmistakable threat to Trump voters. Haha, it’s all in fun! What’s the matter, can’t you take a joke? No, not after two assassination attempts. No, I can’t.”

IGNORE THE NUMBERS AND JUST VOTE, PART II: “Believe me, as someone whose job it is to predict elections for a living, that hurt me more than it hurt you.”

I don’t know what else we can tell you. The modelers are effectively 50-50. Our tipping point state average has Trump up 0.3%, which is effectively 50-50. Everything beyond that is a vibe or, arguably worse, anecdata. No one should have any confidence. Sorry.

— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) November 5, 2024