SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

EXPLOITATION – FROM THE GUARDIAN:  Several women who were erroneously named as sexual assault survivors in an open letter by the North Dakota Democratic senator Heidi Heitkamp are considering taking legal action over the blunder, according to social media. “Heidi Heitkamp’s political agenda has interfered with, or downright ruined, our lives,” said one of the affected women in a Facebook post announcing the possibility of a lawsuit.  She continued: “Survivors of assault who had taken care to avoid the subject were suddenly bombarded by questions asking them to explain to their loved ones why their name appeared on this list.”  The letter, published in local North Dakota newspapers Monday, was intended to call out Heitkamp’s 2018 Senate opponent Kevin Cramer for critical remarks he had made about the #MeToo movement, calling it a “movement toward victimization”.  Do you ever get the feeling that women are exploited, against their will, by Democratic politicians and "feminists," and that their only value is political?  This incident is proof positive.  Oh, and have you seen any leading Democrats inquiring about the health of Professor Ford recently?  Professor who?  She's outlived her usefulness.

BETO, WHO ARE YOU? – FROM YAHOO:   A day after he aggressively challenged Ted Cruz in their last scheduled debate, Democratic Senate hopeful Beto O’Rourke is out with new ads in which he criticizes his Republican opponent by name, breaking with his usual message of hope and unity as he tries to make up ground in the final weeks of Texas’s closely watched U.S. Senate race.  According to the Texas Tribune, which first reported the ads and obtained video of two of the new spots, O’Rourke is airing at least three new television ads around the state, each focused on a different issue: immigration, education and health care. In each 30-second ad, O’Rourke speaks directly to the camera, offering a contrast between Cruz’s approach to the policy and his own.  In the immigration spot, O’Rourke, a Democratic congressman from El Paso, criticizes Cruz for blocking immigration reform in the Senate and for opposing legal protections for so-called Dreamers, immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. Beto is an amateur, but the fact is that negative ads work, and Cruz must punch back hard.  I think the GOP has been entirely too confident about this race.  Beto has a huge bankroll from out-of-state sources, and he's using it.

WELCOME, MOTHER MUSHROOM – FROM CHANNEL NEWSASIA:  HANOI: A dissident Vietnamese blogger known by the pen name "Mother Mushroom" was on her way to the United States Wednesday (Oct 17) after being released from prison where she was serving 10 years for anti-state propaganda, multiple sources said.  Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was freed from jail Wednesday and put on a flight en route to the US to join her children and mother, a US embassy source, friends, and a Vietnam official said.  "Quynh was sent to the US earlier today," a Vietnamese government official confirmed to AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.  Family friend Nguyen Lai said on Facebook "congratulations" to Quynh, adding she would soon be in a "free country."   Quynh, one of Vietnam's most well-known activists whose recognisable pen name "Me Nam" comes from her daughter's nickname "mushroom", was jailed in June 2017 in a case that drew ire from the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.
She is an outspoken critic of Vietnam's one-party state and gained notoriety with her writing about the environment, politics and deaths in police custody - a no-go topic in communist Vietnam.  Let us not forget that there are no human rights in Vietnam.  And the people who care the least about that are American "journalists" and veterans of the "anti-war" movement, whose actions helped destroy our effort to create a free nation.  Many of those "activists" are teaching in our universities.

October 17, 2018