Ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties will be out for Halloween haunting today, along with politicized witches. It may also soon be RIP for the filibuster.
President Trump is urging the GOP to end the partial government shutdown by going nuclear on the Senate filibuster:
President Donald Trump on Thursday urged Republicans to end the filibuster in order to end the monthlong government shutdown.
In a late-night Truth Social post, Trump noted that Democrats had tried to eliminate the Senate procedure when they had control of both chambers of Congress and the White House during the Biden administration, but then-Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema — both of whom have since left the Democratic Party to become independents — helped block the effort.
Trump revived talk of the “nuclear option,” after his returning from his Asia trip this week.
The Senate filibuster rule benefits the minority party prevents Senate minorities from being railroaded by the majority:
The filibuster is the Senate rule for agreement by 60 of its 100 members to pass most legislation. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate and a 219-213 majority in the House of Representatives.
“It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD’, and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday, Oct. 30.
Food stamps lapse tomorrow—though a federal judge is planning to wave a magic wand and keep them going—and airlines are feeling the pinch. No More Trick or Treat for Teachers’ Unions? Interestingly, the shutdown has exposed the biggest lie in education—i.e., that the Department of Education is essential for education. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal headlined “The Truth about ObamaCare Costs” explains how Dems, who see extended enhanced subsidies as essential to ending the shutdown, aren’t being candid.
President Trump is also going nuclear on … nuclear testing.
“Trump Reverses ‘Asinine’ US Nuclear-weapons Policy — and It’s about Time” is the headline on Rich Lowry’s column in the New York Post:
Donald Trump has trampled on another taboo, and it’s a good thing.
The president said in a Truth Social post that the United States will begin “immediately” testing our “Nuclear Weapons” on “an equal basis” with Russia and China.
It’s not clear what this means exactly; Trump could be referring to the delivery systems that carry nuclear weapons, or the weapons themselves.
If it is the latter, as most news accounts assume, it will represent an advance for the US nuclear deterrent and a victory of common sense over superstition.
Climate activism sometimes verged into superstition. That is one reason why Microsoft founder Bill Gates’s rethinking climate change is HUGE. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal looks at Mr. Gates’ revised view:
Mr. Gates now sounds like Bjorn Lomborg, the “skeptical environmentalist” whose writing often runs in these pages. Mr. Lomborg has been arguing for years that while warming temperatures are a reality, the world’s poor in particular face far more urgent challenges. He believes, as these columns have also long argued, that the best way to cope with rising temperatures is through innovation, adaptation, and policies that continue to spread economic growth and prosperity.
“Sorry Republicans, There’s No Silver Lining to a Mamdani Win” is the headline of Joseph Sternberg’s Wall Street Journal column today. Sternberg writes:
New York is on the cusp of electing a mayor who’s far outside the mainstream of a country that otherwise saw a pronounced shift toward Donald Trump less than a year ago. Everything about Mr. Mamdani’s economics and left-wing culture warring seems to scream “unelectable outside New York City.” Much of his persona should scream “unelectable inside New York City,” too….
The problem for Republicans and others opposed to far-out leftiness is that failure doesn’t speak for itself. Voters around the world are in a break-things mood. Although parties of the right often are the beneficiaries, voters aren’t always discriminating when they choose between one political sledgehammer or another.
Meanwhile, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, running a distance second in the New York mayor’s race, might have hope, according to a New York Post op-ed, if he would embrace New York’s Republican voters, but he spurns them. They make up 20 percent of the electorate. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa’s chances “aren’t looking good.” Jack Ciattarelli, GOP candidate for Governor of New Jersey, appears to be facing much better odds.
Gone Fishing. “Jack Smith, Master Angler” is the headline on the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel’s column on the Special Prosecutor, who, in prosecuting Donald Trump “cast a net the size of the Republican ocean.” Strassel writes:
To appreciate fully the outrageousness of this fishing expedition, remember the original setting for the Smith probe. By the time Attorney General Merrick Garland named the prosecutor to the job—in November 2022—the Justice Department had been investigating the events of Jan. 6 for 22 months and had charged hundreds of people. Yet none of those charged were named Trump, in part because there to this day is no evidence he communicated with the only actors (Proud Boys, Oath Keepers) who actually plotted to—and did—breach the Capitol on that awful day….
Let the legacy of Jack Smith be no more Jack Smiths.
Ms. Must doesn’t do much royalty coverage. But the saga of the man formerly known as prince (this headline is much in vogue today) who is now merely Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is so astonishing that it rates a mention. Hard on the girls, but they keep their titles. It is not beyond the realm of possibility than Mr. Mountbatten Windsor could face a police investigation of his role in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Well, I Guess They Learned to Code. “Insurance Fraud Is Widespread in Transgender Medicine” is the headline of a dynamite City Journal expose by Leon Sapir. Sapir writes:
A key strategy in the Trump administration’s crackdown on gender medicine is identifying and prosecuting insurance fraud. A common form of potential billing fraud involves use of the diagnosis “Endocrine Disorder Not Otherwise Specified” (E34.9 in the International Classification of Diseases handbook), instead of “Gender Identity Disorders” (F64), for patients who do not have or are not being treated for endocrine disorders….
A castrated male will be unable to produce sex hormones, which play a critical role in the maintenance of most body systems. Iatrogenic primary hypogonadism—or doctor-induced underproduction of hormones—results in infertility and can lead to osteoporosis, a serious medical problem.
In its clinical practice guideline on gender medicine, the Endocrine Society recommends that females be given six to 100 times the normal reference range of the virilizing hormones. “Gender-affirming care,” in this case, means iatrogenic hyperandrogenism—an endocrine disorder desired for its secondary cosmetic effects.
Glamour magazine, U.K. edition, probably doesn’t use the term “castrated male” in its “Women of the Year” issue that profiles nine men who identify as “transgender” women—or “Dolls,” as the magazine calls them. All are pictured wearing “Protect the Dolls” T-shirts (“What we really crave is to work, love and exist with dignity”).
If you’re still in need of something unsettling for the spooky day and night upon us, City Journal celebrates Halloween with a nice story on the novelist Shirley Jackson, whose dark, gothic tales deserve a place on your shelf not too far from the Master, Edgar Allen Poe. Jackson’s press “reduced her to being a feminist icon,” which was horribly unfair to Jackson’s genius.
The Trumps charmingly gave Halloween treats to kids at the White House last night, which was probably scary to people like this. This just in: Kash Patel’s FBI foiled a plot for Halloween violence.
