SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:53 P.M. ET:

ANOTHER BRIGHT SPOT GONE – FROM THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:  The days of cheap gas in New Jersey are coming to an end.  A major increase in the gas tax in the Garden State will go into effect Tuesday, raising the tax from 14.5 cents per gallon to 37.5 cents.  Republican Gov. Chris Christie and the Democratic-controlled Legislature agreed to the hike because the state had run out of cash to pay for transportation projects.  The 23-cent jump is the first increase in New Jersey’s gas tax since 1988. It had the second lowest fuel tax in the nation after Alaska, but will now have the sixth-highest.  Why do I think this isn't progress?  New Jersey has been a gasoline Mecca.  The market worked and brought plenty of people over the state line to buy gasoline, and then maybe check out other New Jersey shops and malls.  Now that will be destroyed.   Many businesses will go with it.  Good government at work.

THE PRESIDENT'S HOME TOWN – FROM CBS LOCAL:    CBS) — At least 14 people were killed and 38 others have been wounded in shootings across Chicago since Friday evening.  The weekend’s latest homicide happened about 3:15 a.m. Sunday in the Old Town neighborhood on the Near North Side. Two 17-year-old boys were standing outside in the 1300 block of North Hudson, when a dark-colored vehicle drove by and someone inside opened fire, according to Chicago Police.   One teenager was shot in the chest and back and taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The other boy suffered gunshot wounds to the chest and head and was also taken to Northwestern, where he was listed in critical condition.  About 15 minutes earlier, a 19-year-old man was killed and a 40-year-old man was wounded in a Near West Side shooting.   And no one seems interested.  What a comment on our society.

"HIGHER" EDUCATION – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   An NYU professor crusading against political correctness and student coddling was booted from the classroom last week after his colleagues complained about his “incivility,” The Post has learned.  Liberal studies prof Michael Rectenwald, 57, said he was forced Wednesday to go on paid leave for the rest of the semester.  “They are actually pushing me out the door for having a different perspective,” the academic told The Post.  Rectenwald launched an undercover Twitter account called Deplorable NYU Prof on Sept. 12 to argue against campus trends like “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings” and other aspects of academia’s growing PC culture.  He chose to be anonymous, he explained in one of his first tweets, because he was afraid “the PC Gestapo would ruin me” if he put his name ­behind his conservative ideas on the famously liberal campus.  What an example to set for our children.  The stench of fascism is in the air.  It would be nice to see some outrage over this in the mainstream media, but don't hold your breath.

October 30, 2016