Democrats modified and sent out "cure" notices to illegally extend deadline.

The Federalist

Russia uses leaks and issues bogus international arrest warrants against critics of the Russian government. The assembly line of political prosecution appears to be the only thing that functions efficiently in the socialist paradise of Venezuela. To criticize or run for office against the ruling party in Egypt, Pakistan, China, Burma, Saudi Arabia, and many other such countries could put your legal well-being in jeopardy.

Here, it will merely get you doxxed, your truck burned, surrounded by a mob at your home, trapped in an elevator, accused of gang rape, investigated for treason, and shot at a baseball game.

Ace of Spades

In any case, in the near term, for sure the Democrats even as we speak going to go all out and try to goniff Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin for 2020. If I am a Republican governor and have a majority GOP state legislature I would be working my ass off now to thoroughly examine every aspect of the state's elector systems and personnel and preemptively pass laws and fire/hire people to mitigate as best as I can the Democrat thievery that is sure to come.

This is not bad advice, and Republican leadership has unfortunately failed to follow it. Trump at least attempted to address this problem, but was thwarted by Democrat states refusing to provide voter roll information (which should be public record).

I think we need a comprehensive approach this problem:

1) State governors and law enforcement commit to investigating and prosecuting vote fraud -- illegal aliens voting, mysterious ballots appearing, all of it. This will require cleaning up voter roll data.

2) A federal system for allowing states to clean up their voter rolls by coordinating with other states to detect to detect voters who move, die, or are convicted of felonies (where applicable) and deactivate their old registrations.

3) In the lame duck session, while Republicans still control the House, amend Motor-Voter act to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

4) Republican party officials commit to using party funds to fight races that land within the margin of fraud and the Democrats try to steal. These races need to be fought for tooth and nail, not conceded gracefully after three days of ballot-discovery leads to a narrow Dem lead.

Good news. If Saudi Arabia is to modernize, it will need to avoid casually murdering its citizens and implement justice for those who commit such acts -- and those who order them. I doubt their taste for justice extends to those high enough in government to order such a thing, but it's a start.

She will have control of the House for the next two years, so this should be a matter of significant concern for us. She's specifically talking about gun registration in the form of so-called "universal background checks". In practice that means that every time anyone buys or sells a gun, they have to be background checked, and that check creates a government record of the sale. Transferring a firearm without a background check would immediately become a felony, and any firearm in your possession without a matching record with a manufacture date after the legislation took effect would be a presumption of guilt.

Now, the good news...

Pelosi's comments came immediately after a mass murder in California, which already is practically a gun control paradise. That won't help her argument and passion is likely to cool before the new Congress is seated.

Furthermore, gun control has passed the House before. The Senate is the more difficult hurdle. Republicans still hold the Senate, and even increased the margin a little. However, many of our Senators are a bit wobbly on this, and Trump is a bit of an unknown. He's already backed a bump-stock ban and he has New York attitudes about guns. We don't want this to get to Trump's desk.

Schumer probably can't count to 60 on this, but "universal background checks" are a recognized point of political weakness. We know they don't work but politicians find it hard to vote against them.

It seems likely Pelosi's real goal is to excite her base and force a vote on the record, then use it to fundraise and go after vulnerable 2020 senators.

Worse, this is a declaration of war from the Democrats. They no longer believe that gun control loses elections.

UPDATE: Vote counters say Pelosi can't win. I wonder which direction the causal arrow points?

Universities have gone completely nuts. First they pay to bring a porn star to campus to speak about porn. Then there is a controversy since the money came out of ... well, that's not quite clear, but we all know that students, parents, and loans pay tuition, right? Then they invite an anti-porn speaker.

The right answer is to invite none of the above. They should be inviting engineers, scientists, and other people whose core competency and speaking topic includes the advancement of knowledge.

Breitbart

An illegal alien accused of killing three people has been a recipient of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) program, immigration officials say.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson told the Springfield News-Leader that Luis Rodrigo Perez, 23, a Mexican national accused of killing three people in Missouri after jail officials released him on domestic violence charges in New Jersey, was a recipient of the DACA program in 2012 and 2014.

The problem with DACA is that people who are prone to break the law in one way (to enter the country) are also prone to break the law in others (murder). It's not always such a dramatic escalation, of course. But not everyone is a good citizen, and it sure would be nice to have the chance to pick and choose which foreigners we allow in. If nothing else, we could refuse those who are credibly accused of murder.

Does anyone remember the Democrats, as a party, seriously campaigning on gun control this cycle? Sure, a few folks mentioned it. But apparently the real program is mandatory buybacks backed by nuclear arms. That seems extrema and not what voters were promised.

The population is Texas is approximately 30 million people and the state is solidly Republican. When, not if, Texas says no to confiscating their semiautomatic firearms (note: rifles and pistols both), will the Democrats nuke Texas? According to the CDC (not exactly a gun-friendly source), there are 12,979 firearm homicides per year in the United States. If the goal of firearms confiscation is to save lives, and the cost is nuking Texas, it would take two thousand, three hundred, and 11 years to save a single life... and that's assuming none of those 12,979 firearm homicides was justified or replaced by an alternative weapon.

Luckily the nuclear button is in Trump's hands. Bet you never thought those words would be written here.

Trump may be unpredictable, but he's not crazy.

What the Democrats are proposing would lead immediately to civil war, if passed and implemented. Luckily the chances such a confiscation bill would pass the Senate are low. Luckily, Trump is in a position to veto it for now. But losing 2020 could have dire consequences, and we'll have to watch the Senate like a hawk to make sure nothing gets to Trump, who just might be unconventional and New York enough to sign it.

So here's my answer to Dem Rep Eric Swalwell's call to confiscate firearms by force in violation of the 2nd Amendment:

We will fight you on our soapboxes, our microphones, our websites. We will fight you in the House. We will fight you in the Senate. We will fight you in the White House. We will fight you on the streets in protests and petitions. We will fight you at the ballot boxes. We will fight you in the courts. If necessary, we will fight you from our rooftops, in the back alleys of your cities, in the tanks and aircraft and naval vessels based on those states which remain free, and in every place you don't expect us to be. We will pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to this cause. Should your nuclear fire rain down upon our nation, burning friend and foe alike, from our backyard bunkers our answer shall resound throughout history, soaked in the blood of your abbatoir altar: NO.

Now what?

Investor's Business Daily

Researchers from Arizona State University and Texas A&M University questioned 462 financial journalists around the country. They followed up with 18 additional interviews. The journalists worked for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and a number of other newspapers.

What they found surprised them. Even the supposedly hard-nosed financial reporters were overwhelmingly liberal. Of the 462 people surveyed, 17.63% called themselves "very liberal," while 40.84% described themselves as "somewhat liberal."

When you add it up, 58.47% admit to being left of center. Along with that, another 37.12% claim to be "moderate."

What about the mythic "conservative" financial journalist? In fact, a mere 0.46% of financial journalists called themselves "very conservative," while just 3.94% said they were "somewhat conservative." That's a whopping 4.4% of the total that lean right-of-center.

When you read those numbers, it is important to take them with a grain of salt. The media is a profession that heavily values "neutrality" and "objectivity" in its self-image, which will make it very hard for media figures to self-rate themselves as anything other than neutral, with perhaps a mild lean one side or the other. And yet the reported lean was overwhelmingly liberal, and the real numbers are likely even more liberal than those reported.

PJMedia

Slowly the Walker vote had been edging up, until the governor was leading by about 7,000 votes. Then suddenly, at about 11:30 p.m., the Milwaukee County clerk delivered a bombshell.

He had apparently “discovered” some 46,000 mostly absentee ballots that had not been included in the previously announced count. Moreover, thousands of those ballots had been “damaged,” then “reconstructed” to enable machine counting. The clerk reported only that a “modem failure” had prevented these from being properly counted.

While most of the attention has been focused on Florida and Arizona, the Wisconsin governor's race also looks to have been stolen.

Arrests have been made in previous fires, usually described as illegal immigrants. Now ISIS is claiming credit for the latest round of fires. Refusing to secure our southern border is practically an invitation.

UPDATE: If, in fact, this was an ISIS attack in the form of a fire set by arson, 71 people are confirmed dead and 1,000 more are missing.

If, in fact, those thousand people are dead -- or even some significant fraction of them -- then we are looking at the largest terrorist attack since 9-11. Even the Vegas mass murder only killed 58, though it wounded over 500 more.

That's going to leave a mark on his plans to run for President in 2020.

UPDATE: Oh, and his law practice has been evicted.

View from North Central Idaho

The Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association have filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging gun control Initiative 1639 in Washington State, on several grounds.

I won't be trying to read the tea leaves here. But it would be nice to see a gun case or two reach SCOTUS soon to see how the justices vote. We may have a solid five votes now, but if not, it would be nice to find out on a case that isn't for all the marbles.

Lifezette

A federal judge ordered former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to answer five questions she has avoided for years about her use of a private email server to conduct official U.S. diplomatic business.

U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan on Wednesday gave Clinton 30 days to respond under oath to five questions.

I don't really care what Hillary does at this point in her life, except that she's indicated she intends to run again in 2020. And if she intends to try to evade recordkeeping laws and FOIA laws in the same way she did as SecState, that's a problem.

Whether it was a troubled relationship from years ago, or a traffic stop gone wrong, it isn't enough to believe the victim or even to believe the DNA evidence.

Even if you assume DNA identification is perfect (and it's not), the mere presence of DNA does not prove a crime.

SayUncle

It appears that the Department of Justice is about to ban bump stocks. I say about to because the Final Action is slated for the imaginary date of 12/00/2018.

The imaginary date suggests December, ie, next month. BATFE is going to do this without legislation, and it will have a significant economic impact (hundreds of millions) even ignoring the fact that the law will take probably thousands of people who bought legal products for their firearms and turn them until felons unless they destroy their property for basically no reason, all sparked by a shooting that the government continues to hide details about -- and can't even prove the shooter actually used bump stocks, because they did not examine any of his firearms.

Trump should step in and smack this down hard. But he probably won't, because it's not really his issue.

Maybe the NRA can wake him up... except they are kinda-sorta-agreeing.

Politico

The Florida Department of State last week asked federal prosecutors to investigate dates that were changed on official state election documents, the first voting “irregularities” it has flagged in the wake of the 2018 elections.

The concerns, which the department says can be tied to the Florida Democratic Party, center around date changes on forms used to fix vote-by-mail ballots sent with incorrect or missing information. Known as “cure affidavits,” those documents used to fix mail ballots were due no later than 5 p.m. on Nov. 5 — the day before the election. But affidavits released on Tuesday by the DOS show that documents from four different counties said the ballots could be returned by 5 p.m. on Thursday, which is not accurate.

Now if only we could trust the FBI to investigate in a neutral, objective manner.

UPDATE: Broward County election supervisor announces possible resignation. Possible is a worrying adjective. The headline would be much better without it.

UKIP

UKIP has received reports from party members and donors that their PayPal accounts have been suspended without explanation. The party is currently investigating the claims.

Whatever you think of the party, access to financial services is necessary for humans to exist and live, at least in the modern world. Using membership in a political party as a criteria to shut down financial accounts is beyond the pale. This is the modern version of Stalin's purges-by-famine.

Daily Caller

An attorney who appeared as a witness before the Mueller grand jury is accusing the special counsel’s office of a conflict of interest because one of the prosecutors involved in the special counsel’s case has worked for Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

The prosecutor, Jeannie Rhee, has questioned witnesses about Roger Stone, the Trump confidant who is one of the targets of the investigation, numerous sources tell The Daily Caller News Foundation. Rhee questioned Tyler Nixon, an attorney for Stone, just before his grand jury appearance on Nov. 2.

Let's not kid around. All of the prosecutors on Mueller's team have conflicts of interest. Those conflicts are why they were chosen.

CNSNews

Matthew Whitaker, the acting attorney general of the United States and a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, said in a 2016 interview that there is enough evidence "in the public domain" to warrant the appointment of a "special prosecutor" to investigate the Clinton Foundation. He added that the Foundation was "clearly a pay-to-play situation" where if you gave money to the Foundation, you got "preferential treatment" at the State Department, which was headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from 2009 to 2013.

Hillary Clinton's emailing of classified documents through her private computer server was a "serious" problem, but the "real ballgame" is "where Clinton Foundation donors were given preferential treatment," said Whitaker in an Aug. 25, 2016 interview...

In 2016, a special counsel would be needed because Clinton served as a cabinet official in Obama's administration. Also, we've seen since then exactly how deep Clinton's influence even within the FBI has penetrated. Even now, a special counsel seems necessary if a full and proper investigation is to be performed.

Of course, as acting AG, he can initiate such an investigation himself.

Here is a direct admission of the central gun control strategy:

Captain's Journal

“The end impact is you decrease gun ownership overall,” Cassandra Crifasi, a researcher (and gun owner) at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, told me. “Lots of folks think, ‘Well, it’s probably not worth going through all these hoops to buy firearms, so I’m not going to buy one.’ And then you have fewer firearms around, and less exposure.”

Make owning a gun so fraught with regulations, permits, licenses, and legal peril should anything go wrong that no one ever buys a gun.

In Arizona, they used Emergency Voting Centers only in heavily Democrat areas. Without any need of an actual emergency.

In Florida, among many other things, boxes of blank ballots are turning up in rental cars. How many ballots were in the box before it was found, and how many of those are still blank?

In Texas, illegal aliens are being allowed to vote.

UPDATE: They have voter rolls containing more than the number of eligible voters.

The Democrats are clearly terrified that replacing AG Sessions with acting-AG Whitaker will have dire consequences for their control and the dual sword and shield role he has played in preventing Trump from draining the national security swamp. They are openly threatening Whitaker should be exercise oversight over Mueller and his witch hunt. Given Mueller's utter lack of results related to the President and his campaign, that terror strongly suggests that Rod was covering for them and they know it. Without Rod and with Mueller neutered, their goose is cooked.

Luckily, Rod himself has already established the precedent for how the DOJ can handle subpoenas from the House of Representatives. Silence and counter-investigations.

What infuriates me is that Republicans held the House for years and held endless hearings without ever seriously taking the issues to court or otherwise seriously challenging the swamp creatures in DOJ and FBI. They had the chance to blow this thing wide open and they wimped out.

But this situation may not play well for the Democrats in 2020. When Republicans held the House, the Senate, and the White House, they were uneasy allies... a mix of true believers and swamp creatures surrounding Trump, a slugger with nothing to punch because they all pretended to be friends. If the Democrats give Trump something to punch for the next two years, they may end up regretting it.

Note: I don't endorse those tactics in general, but the Democrats badly need several large doses of their own medicine.

Mises Institute

Political consent is defined these days as rape was defined a generation or two ago: people consent to anything which they do not forcibly resist. Anyone who does not stone city hall presumably consented to everything the mayor does. Anyone who does not jump the White House fence and try to storm into the Oval Office consents to all executive orders. Anyone who doesn't assail the nearest federal office building consents to the latest edicts in the Federal Register. And if people do attack government facilities, then they are terrorists who can be justifiably killed or imprisoned forever.

Ironically, the Founding Fathers proffered a notion of political consent much closer to what #MeToo activists are championing nowadays. The Bill of Rights provided bright lines which politicians were prohibited from crossing regardless of vote counts. The Bill of Rights was a sacred pledge that politicians admitted they had no right to censor the press, confiscate private firearms, suppress religion, or inflict cruel and unusual punishment on citizens. The fact that politicians routinely often violate Americans’ constitutional rights does not make the Bill of Rights any less binding.

Regardless of the outcome of the midterm congressional elections, we should remember that members of Congress and the president took oaths promising to honor and defend the Constitution. In the same way that consenting to a dinner date does not entitle someone to bind and beat another person, consenting in a voting booth does not entitle politicians to ravage Americans’ rights. A strict adherence to the Bill of Rights is the surest way to reduce perils after Election Day.

This is a pretty clear example of libertarians trying to encourage or recruit younger voters using an analogy to a more modern situation. While there's nothing in it that is blatantly wrong, I think it's going to fail... mostly because I think the younger generation of voters doesn't have the historical background to appreciate the bill of rights. They may not even know what it is, because no one in the educational system ever taught them.