MANY MORE DETAILS AND JOYOUS REACTIONS: The Good Guys Score Another Win: Hamas Political Chief Blew Up Real Good.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Texas troopers arrest large numbers of special interest aliens, including men from Iran.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers working through Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, continue to arrest “special interest aliens,” primarily men from countries of foreign concern. That includes Iran, a U.S. State Department designated State Sponsor of Terrorism.

Texas DPS first sounded the alarm about increasing arrests of SIAs last month, The Center Square first reported.

In the past week, DPS troopers have arrested dozens of SIAs, Texas DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez said in a series of social media posts.

SIAs are noncitizens who, based “on an analysis of travel patterns,” are “known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism” who “potentially poses a national security risk to the United States,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security explains. Having an SIA designation does not necessarily mean the individual is a terrorist, but their travel pattern “indicates a possible nexus to nefarious activity (including terrorism) and, at a minimum, provides indicators that necessitate heightened screening and further investigation,” DHS says.

Texas is just doing the jobs Washington won’t.

CORRECTION: IT WILL EXACERBATE THE EXISTING MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS. Halperin: Trump Win Will Trigger ‘Unprecedented and Hideous’ Mental Health Crisis.

50 SOUNDS LIKE A LOT, PARTICULARLY WHEN DEMOCRATS KEEP ASSURING ME HOW SAFE AND SECURE OUR ELECTIONS ARE: GAI Study Details 50 Threats to Election Integrity.

On the most recent episode of The Drill Down, Peter Schweizer and co-host Eric Eggers tackle the many ways elections can be rigged and, more importantly, how to make sure that it doesn’t happen.

Many states have been conscientious about cleaning their voter rolls — removing deceased voters, voters who have left the state, voters who are not U.S. citizens but who were registered through their driver’s license applications, and so forth.

States such as Michigan, however, have not been so fastidious, as the GAI report and the Drill Down hosts explain. “We always talk about this because this continues to be a problem in [battleground] states that are poised to matter,” says co-host Eric Eggers. “In Michigan, we’re seeing the number of counties with voter registration rates over 100 percent.”

Eggers wrote a book in 2018 called FRAUD that detailed many of the different types of election rigging and fixing that have taken place in U.S. history. That book, however, was published two years before the 2020 COVID pandemic, and rule changes made by some states that were ostensibly to make voting safer during the pandemic had the effect of making election security much harder to ensure.

GAI’s report covers how those rule changes, which many states have since been repealed or replaced, may have affected the 2020 outcome and threaten the integrity of the 2024 presidential election.

“We’re now seeing 53 counties in Michigan with more than 100% registration, which obviously means there are some names on there that don’t belong there,” Eggers says.

Read the whole thing.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Team Kamala Invoked the Mercy Rule and I Can’t Stop Laughing.

NICE SHOOTING:

The word that keeps coming to mind is “methodical.”

Seth Frantzman added: “If the Sinwar details are confirmed, imagine Doha today, their prized asset of Hamas and its genocidal leadership may be in question. They’ve been stringing along the US and others for a year of “talks” over a hostage deal, representing Sinwar and talking on his behalf to slow down the deal and sabotage it.”

That’s just the start of a thread you might want to dig into.

Anyway, Hamas and Hezbollah wanted a total war with Israel and now they’ve got one — how’s that workin’ out for ya, fellas?

Related (From Ed): Israel says it may have killed Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader and mastermind of October 7th attack in Gaza.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Musk Sues California Commie Regulators for Blocking SpaceX Launches Over Politics.

DECLINE IS A CHOICE: Phillips 66 provides notice of its plan to cease operations at Los Angeles-area refinery.

Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) announced plans to cease operations at its Los Angeles-area refinery in the fourth quarter of 2025 and will work with the state of California to supply fuel markets and meet ongoing consumer demand.

“We understand this decision has an impact on our employees, contractors and the broader community,” said Mark Lashier, chairman and CEO of Phillips 66. “We will work to help and support them through this transition.” Approximately 600 employees and 300 contractors currently operate the Los Angeles-area refinery.

“With the long-term sustainability of our Los Angeles Refinery uncertain and affected by market dynamics, we are working with leading land development firms to evaluate the future use of our unique and strategically located properties near the Port of Los Angeles,” said Lashier. “Phillips 66 remains committed to serving California and will continue to take the necessary steps to meet our commercial and customer demands.”

What steps? California is determined to go all-electric and should applaud Phillips’ decision to close the refinery.

(Hat tip, Will Collier.)

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Halloween’s Scariest Horror Story — Four More Years of Kamala Harris. “Kamala Harris has a voice that nails on a chalkboard find irritating. This is the first presidential election I won’t just be concerned about the issues, but I will be voting with my eardrums as well. Yeah, that’s shallow and petty, but it’s honest too.”

DON’T GET COCKY:

🚨 BREAKING: We are now less than 3 weeks from the election and Trump is positioned MUCH stronger in polling than the 2020 election.

Change from this point in 2020:
🔴 National: Trump+7.4
🔴 Pennsylvania: Trump+5.9
🔴 Michigan: Trump+8.2
🔴 Wisconsin: Trump+6
🔴 North Carolina:…

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 16, 2024

Pollsters swear up and down that they’ve figured out ways to mitigate underestimating Trump’s support as badly as they did in 2016 and 2020, but we’ll see.

UNNATURAL DISASTER: The PR Fallout of the Kamala Harris FOX News Interview.

YES: Does Kamala Harris Have a Catholic Problem in PA?

A more recent Pew poll shows Harris trailing Donald Trump with Catholics by five points, even worse than Hillary Clinton performed in 2016. But the issue isn’t entirely religious:

“Mr. Biden may be the last of the big-time Democrats whose base was the white working class. But it confers a sensibility Ms. Harris is conspicuously lacking…”

Politico reports that Ms. Harris’s prospects are “considerably dicier” because of a “cultural dissonance” between her progressive San Francisco persona and white working-class Catholic Pennsylvanians.
That gets closer to the real danger for Democrats, but it has less to do with “white” and “Catholic” than it does to working class. Biden had a political and cultural connection to working-class voters, not just because of his Catholicism but because of his background. He fit into that milieu even if that mainly came as a conceit, especially after fifty years in Washington DC, but he could talk in their language too … at least before his brain turned to jelly. People keep overlooking his 2012 address to the Democrat convention, which turned out to be the best of the week, in which he artfully bridged the gap between the working class and the Academia-drenched elite that had mainly taken over the party in the current generation.

Harris simply can’t do that. Not only is she incapable of connecting at anywhere near that level, she only recently even showed a desire to do so.

If Harris were a more talented politician, none of this might be a problem for her. But she came up in Bay Area politics, shielded by big money and a state apparatus so far to the left that she’s practically a moderate there.

Harris never had to develop whatever political skills (assuming she has any) to appeal to anybody outside of San Francisco’s parochial worldview — and it shows.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Harris Is Slipping — But Why?

THE ANSWER MIGHT NOT BE THAT COMPLICATED: Harris Is Slipping — But Why? “When a presidential candidate goes from a slight edge to a nearly 20-point deficit in the betting odds over the course of a week, there’s clearly something in the air — even if it’s only in people’s perceptions. So what accounts for the sudden perception of Kamala Harris as a loser on election day?”

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Sad: Variety Goes Full Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Film critics bring their biases into the theater. Every time.

Political. Cultural. Social.

Heck, this critic adores horror movies and avoids period dramas when possible. (That said, “The Favourite” was wonderful.) It’s the critic’s job to acknowledge and set aside those biases. Films deserve nothing less.

The same holds for film analysis. And it’s here where Variety’s Owen Gleiberman loses the plot. Why?

All together now: “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The veteran critic is sad to see that the anti-Trump hit piece “The Apprentice” bombed in its theatrical debut.

Not just sad. Deeply disturbed and even paranoid.

IT CAN’T BE BARGAINED WITH. IT CAN’T BE REASONED WITH. IT DOESN’T FEEL PITY, OR REMORSE, OR FEAR. AND IT ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STOP… EVER, UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD: This gecko-inspired robot amputates its own limbs to survive.

HOW TO FURTHER ALIENATE WHATEVER REMAINS OF YOUR FANBASE WITH THIS 1 WEIRD TRICK: Star Wars Adds Trans Clone Trooper.

BUT OTHER THAN THAT, IT’S GREAT:

Rooftop solar is a disaster:

1. In California, rooftop solar has shifted electricity costs so that poor Californians are paying an estimated $6.5 billion more electricity. Someone has to pay of the grid and rich solar panel owners aren't.

2. Rooftop solar has also wrecked the… pic.twitter.com/7TqJdFVaqc

— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) October 16, 2024

PROTEUS IV HAS ENTERED THE CHAT: AI Unbuttoned This Programmer’s Blouse But It Isn’t What You Think.

THEY’RE FLAILING: Harris’ top surrogates Clinton, Obama and Biden backfire on campaign trail, boosting Trump.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been able to spin Vice President Kamala Harris’ top Democratic surrogates’ recent campaign stops as an endorsement for him as their statements have somewhat backfired.

Former Democratic presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and current President Joe Biden have been surrogates for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Trump has used some of their recent remarks to benefit himself, whether it be a failed political move or a statement.

What follows is a nice summary of flailing stories you’ve almost certainly already seen over the last couple of days but, as I wrote earlier today, “in a close election, flailing might work.”

So no getting cocky.

STANDARDS? WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ STANDARDS: Diplomas for all: Massachusetts will vote on ending state graduation standards. “In the wake of pandemic learning loss, many states are lowering standards to get students to a diploma. Massachusetts was a leader in using standards and testing to drive accountability. If it abandons that effort, says James Peyser, the former education secretary, it will be a signal to other states.”

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: BMW Just Told Europe to Stick Its EV Mandate WHERE?

UNEXPECTEDLY:

BREAKING: The FBI just quietly updated their crime data for 2022. Turns out it was missing thousands of crimes!

The updated data shows there were 80,029 more violent crimes than in 2021. There were an additional 1,699 m*rders, 7,780 r*pes, 33,459 robberies, and 37,091 aggravated… pic.twitter.com/oEAgDsf1Lc

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 16, 2024

Positive spin: Finally, a Biden administration revision that isn’t downward.

HARRIS DECLINED THE INVITE: Trump’s Interview With the Economic Club of Chicago Was Epic.

IT DOES FEEL LIKE A SEA CHANGE IS BREWING:

It wasn't long ago that Trump was completely ostracized. He wasn't even allowed to have a Twitter account. Now he's getting standing ovations from elite types. What an incredible comeback. https://t.co/3Bkvd8twpQ

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) October 15, 2024