• Trump wants to nuke the filibuster: With the Democrats’ government shutdown now in its fourth week, President Donald Trump’s patience has clearly worn out. On Thursday, he posted, “The one question that kept coming up [during my trip] was how did the Democrats SHUT DOWN the United States of America, and why did the powerful Republicans allow them to do it? The fact is, in flying back, I thought a great deal about that question, WHY?” After noting the negative impact the shutdown was having on Americans, Trump added, “Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Democrats under President Joe Biden unsuccessfully sought to do the same thing, though then-Democrat Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema thankfully prevented it. The Senate’s 60-vote threshold has long frustrated the majority party, forcing legislative compromise. But it’s a feature, not a bug, that ensures the minority party has a voice.

• DHS to investigate BLM: In 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s death, the Black Lives Matter organization raked in over $90 million in donations. Yet in the years that followed, allegations surfaced claiming that several of BLM’s most prominent leaders effectively grifted off the support and personally pocketed much of the wealth. This week, it was learned that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California has launched an investigation into BLM’s leaders and other similar black-led “anti-racism” organizations to determine whether they improperly managed charitable funds. The BLM Global Network Foundation noted that it “is not a target of any federal criminal investigation,” promising “full transparency, accountability, and the responsible stewardship of resources dedicated to building a better future for Black communities.”

• China approves TikTok transfer deal: “We finalized the TikTok agreement in terms of getting Chinese approval,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced yesterday. “And I would expect that would go forward in the coming weeks and months, and we’ll finally see a resolution to that.” An agreement is expected to be finalized soon. This comes weeks after Donald Trump signed an executive order authorizing a deal for an American entity acquiring the popular social media platform, stating at the time, “This is going to be American-operated all the way.” Trump has repeatedly put off Congress’s direction to ban it in the U.S. or get China divested from the platform. According to his administration, preserving TikTok as an American-owned platform would generate $178 billion in economic revenue over the next four years. When this deal will be finalized is still up in the air.

• NJ gubernatorial race now a dead heat: Tuesday is election day in two gubernatorial races that have tightened up over the last few weeks. Of particular interest is the race in New Jersey, where Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli has closed the gap with Democrat candidate Mikie Sherrill. Recent polling shows the race to be a dead heat, with the momentum clearly favoring Ciattarelli. This reality has been especially evident in the number of Democrat officials who have endorsed Ciattarelli — 12 so far, with the latest being Branchville Councilman Jeff Lewis, following Branchville Mayor Anthony Frato. Lewis explained that Sherrill “hasn’t done anything to enthuse me.” Should Ciattarelli pull off a Republican upset in New Jersey, it will only further sow discord among an increasingly divided Democrat Party.

• Democrat says narco strikes are a pathway to MAGA getting bombed: In an “epic example” of “toning down the rhetoric,” Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut warned that if Donald Trump wants to kill drug cartel members, perhaps President AOC might want to kill Republicans. “There will be a Democratic President someday,” he said. “All my MAGA friends who are cheering … need to imagine who gets killed when President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that it doesn’t matter what the law says.” The implication is that in his book, law-abiding American citizens are the same as foreign narco terrorists. Sadly, we know from a host of other examples like Jay Jones and Jennifer Welch that they really do want us dead, and they are not ashamed to say it out loud. They actually are the party of hate and death, as evidenced by the number of ghoulish Charlie Kirk Halloween costumes.

• Fewer troops on NATO’s eastern flank: Donald Trump has ordered scaling back U.S. troops from NATO’s eastern flank. Concerned that the move undermines deterrence amid the Russia-Ukraine war, Senate and House Armed Services Committee Chairs Sen. Roger Wicker and Rep. Mike Rogers responded, “The president is right that U.S. force posture in Europe needs to be updated as NATO shoulders additional burdens and the character of warfare changes. But that update must be coordinated widely both within the U.S. government and with NATO.” Clearly, this is part of Trump’s strategy to get European leaders to step into the gap, but it may also be part of backroom negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. To mitigate that U.S. reduction, it is crucial that the U.S. and NATO remain fully committed to the large NATO air base at Mihail, Romania, a major logistical hub for all NATO operations in the region.

• 41K WI voter registrations don’t match driver ID database: Wisconsin’s Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) has obtained data from the Wisconsin Election Commission showing that 41,000 voter registrations in the state do not match the Department of Transportation’s records, including driver’s license numbers and identification card numbers. This is information required by the Help America Vote Act, but WILL was refused additional data to verify the discrepancies. The Washington Examiner reports, “They include 11,174 registrations without a driver’s license number, up from 4,885 in 2020, and 24,733 cases where a name does not fully match WisDOT information, up from 15,260 in 2020.” WILL has sent a follow-up letter to the U.S. Department of Justice requesting that it delve deeper into the issue. WILL has also asked the Wisconsin Election Commission to explain why it has different processes to vet online voter registrations vs. handwritten forms. Transparency and accuracy in our elections matter.

• Judge blocks DOJ’s investigation of QueerDoc trans clinic: In yet another example of two-tiered justice, U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead, a Biden appointee in Washington State, has rejected the Justice Department’s subpoena of a QueerDoc who specializes in telemedicine for gender-confused people. Whitehead claimed the subpoena targeted the small firm “to rifle through thousands of patient records hoping to find something — anything — to justify its predetermined goal of ending gender-affirming care.” QueerDoc was one of more than 20 companies to receive such a subpoena this summer, when Attorney General Pam Bondi began investigating clinics and doctors performing “transgender medical procedures” on children. Bondi has made clear that the DOJ “will use every legal and law enforcement tool available to protect innocent children from being mutilated under the guise of ‘care.’” Unfortunately, it will be an uphill battle.

Headlines

• Planned Halloween weekend terror attack thwarted in Michigan (NY Post)

• Effort to fast-track permanent daylight saving time bill thwarted (NEXSTAR)

• Mamdani forced to address unearthed video exposing vile NYPD comparison (Fox News)

• Elon Musk’s SpaceX set to win $2 billion Pentagon satellite deal (WSJ)

• King Charles strips Prince Andrew of all royal titles and honors amid ongoing scandals (Fox News)

• Texas Supreme Court rules judges can refuse same-sex marriages (Newsweek)

• Humor: Can you spot the differences between these Grokipedia and Wikipedia articles? (Babylon Bee)

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