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

AMERICANS AREN'T BUYING IT – FROM HOT AIR:  I’m not sure if having a quarter of the public blame the president for an attempted domestic terror attack is a “good” result. But since the media seems nearly unanimous in its belief that he does, if only as an (im)moral inspiration, this is worth noting.  The topline numbers: 24 percent say he bears a “lot” of blame, 15 percent say he bears “some,” 10 percent say he bears a “little,” and a full 50 say he bears zippo. All told, then, it’s 49/50. Say, I wonder if those divides fall along partisan lines.  These are the results of a poll for Huffington Post.  They deal only with the attempted bombings of Democratic figures last week, not with the horror in Pittsburgh on Saturday.  The attempts to blame the president for the "atmosphere" in the country are reminiscent of the attempts to blame George W. Bush for almost everything after he won, by a whisker, the 2000 presidential election.  The real story here is the hatred directed toward conservatives and Republicans.  That is the scandal.

WE'LL BUY YOU A TICKET – FROM FOX:   Barbra Streisand is once again thinking about leaving the United States for political reasons.  In a Tuesday interview with The New York Times, the 76-year-old star admitted that she's considering moving to Canada if the Democrats don't win a majority in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections next week.  "I want to sleep nights, if we take the House I’ll be able to sleep a little bit better," Streisand told the outlet, adding that if they don't take control she's been "thinking about" a potential move.  "I’ve been thinking about, do I want to move to Canada? I don’t know. I’m just so saddened by this thing happening to our country."  "It’s making me fat," she continued. "I hear what he said now, and I have to go eat pancakes now, and pancakes are very fattening. We make them with healthy flour, though — almond flour, coconut flour."  I'm so glad we have the recipe.  As for Barbra, we will provide her with a plane ticket, an extra baggage allowance, a newly washed rental car, and a motel room near a psychiatric facility that serves low-calorie pancakes.

AND THE POMPOSITY ROLLS ON – FROM FUTURE OF CAPITALISM:  Just in time for the midterm elections, Ben & Jerry's ice cream has launched "pecan resist," a flavor the company says is meant to convey that "we can peacefully resist the Trump administration's regressive and discriminatory policies and build a future that values inclusivity, equality, and justice for people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, refugees, and immigrants." Also, that "we cannot ignore the Trump administration's attacks on our values, our environment, and our very humanity."  I may buy an eyedropper full.  No more. 

October 30,  2018