November 2, 2026

DREW HOLDEN: America’s Ever-Present Election Denial. A look back at ‘Big Lies’ past provides perspective ahead of the midterms:

There were presidential races that were too close to call—and even called incorrectly—on Election Day. In 1916, the race between incumbent President Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes was so tight that numerous newspapers called it wrongly for Hughes, who would eventually concede defeat gracefully. The 1960 election between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy presented a similar fight to the finish, with allegations of voter fraud and other unsavory behavior in key states. But eventual-President Nixon chose not to contest these outcomes, conceding defeat to Kennedy.

The most contested election of the modern era came in 2000. The race between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush came down to a razor-thin margin of 537 votes in the then-swing state of Florida. Gore took the matter to court in Florida under a law that allowed him to contest the results, arguing for a review of uncounted ballots in the state. But the U.S. Supreme Court, in Bush v. Gore, ruled that the race was over: Bush was the winner of Florida’s 25 electoral votes, and with it the presidency.

That such a ruling would become the law of the land, without violence or insurrection, is a remarkable testament to the American system. But it also kicked up a new American tradition: questioning whether the President of the United States was truly legitimate.

In January 2001, when Congress convened to certify the Electoral College results, a dozen Democrats objected, denying that Bush was the rightful winner. One objector, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), is still in office. A year later, former First Lady Hilary Clinton famously declared that Bush was “selected, not elected.” Gore himself later declared he thought “if everyone in Florida who tried to vote had had his or her vote counted properly, that I would have won.” In 2013, then-Senator Joe Biden alleged that Gore “really did win” the 2000 election, but accepted defeat “for the good of the nation.” Countless other Democrats have claimed the 2000 election was “stolen,” that Bush’s victory was “fraudulent,” and more.

I’ll never forget watching Dan Rather of CBS interrupt a Sunday afternoon NFL game on November 26th, 2000 and using the most hesitant and tut-tutting language possible after Florida’s Secretary of State certified Dubya’s victory: Bush Wins? Not As Democrat Dan Rather Sees It.

Katherine Harris may have certified George W. Bush as President-Elect last night, but don’t expect the liberal media to concede this official result any faster than their friends in the Gore campaign will. Last night in live coverage on CBS, Dan Rather identified Harris as a Republican at least six times, and questioned the finality of her finding at least ten times:

● Rather began: “Nineteen days after the presidential election, Florida’s Republican Secretary of State is about to announce the winner – as she sees it and she decrees it – of the state’s potentially decisive 25 electoral votes. Katherine Harris will officially certify the state’s election returns…The believed certification – as the Republican Secretary of State sees it – is coming just hours after a court ordered deadline for counties to submit their hand count and recount totals.”

● “The reason we’re on the air right across the board nationally right now is because Florida’s Secretary of State – a Republican, as we’ve mentioned before – campaigned actively for George Bush, well-connected to Governor Bush’s Governor brother Jeb Bush in Florida, but a woman who has consistently said ‘I’m trying to do my job, right down to the letter of the law, as best I can’…She will certify – as she sees it – who gets Florida’s 25 electoral votes. Those 25 electoral votes potentially will be decisive.”

● Rather explained the signing: “What’s happening here is the certification – as the Florida Secretary of State sees it and decrees it – is being signed…After this, it will be, at least in the opinion of the Secretary of State, that the results will be final…The Secretary of State, as she has restated here, in effect believes that the election certification she gives should stand.”

The atmosphere in the CBS newsroom must have been unimaginably toxic that November; as Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal noted on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, “For activist and professional Democrats, the most ignominious day in their collective political lives occurred a year earlier—the Florida presidential recount. The 2000 election ended only when the Supreme Court resolved it in favor of George Bush. Republican and independent voters moved on, but many Democrats never did; they were now being governed by an illegitimate president. The chances that any Bush policies would retain their support were minimal, with or without 9/11.”

If Republicans alluded a similar vibe in late 2020, they acquired it from 20 years of watching the hyper-online left refuse to accept the results of any election they lost.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

BUSYBODIES: Denver voters weigh ballot measure barring sale of foie gras. “In Denver, the campaign to pass the ordinance is backed by Pro-Animal Future and its Colorado chapter, the same groups that backed failed Denver measures to ban the sale of fur products and ban slaughterhouses in 2024.”

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green

SHE REFUSED TO BEND THE KNEE:

Not even for CNN:

Posted at 11:24 am by Stephen Green

SEPTUM PIERCING RULE REMAINS UNDEFEATED:

UPDATE:

Posted at 10:55 am by Ed Driscoll

TDS IS REAL: If you think Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is just another way of saying “obsessed,” the latest Issues & Insights/TIPP survey provides persuasive data to the contrary. Consider these findings:

  • More than a third of the public (38%) and more than half of Democrats (53%) say they themselves have experienced TDS, when it’s described as “unusually intense negative emotional reactions to Donald Trump.”
  • 70% say they observed Trump-related emotional stress, anger, or agitation among people they know.
  • 62% say they have seen people change their behavior because of strong negative feelings toward Trump.

But wait, there’s more! Dr. Carole Lieberman, a board-certified psychiatrist, has been pushing to add TDS to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Hers is an intriguing story in itself.

 

Posted at 10:53 am by Mark Tapscott

I’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE: Prisons Using AI to Predict When Incarcerated People Will Commit Future Crimes.

Michigan is set to deploy a major new AI system to prisons across the state, meant to classify incarcerated people based on “how dangerous they are.”

That’s according to Detroit channel Fox2, which reports that the Michigan Department of Corrections is plowing ahead with an inmate categorization algorithm that will sort people into various housing levels.

In Michigan, incarcerated people are separated into five housing levels according to their security classification. In the past, screenings were performed by a committee of staff appointed by the Warden at each facility. Now, it seems the state wants to outsource that decision — or at least have it be heavily informed by — a non-profit tech company called Recidiviz.

Related: Starbucks Apparently Wants to Make That ‘Minority Report’ Shopping Scene a Reality. “We’re also exploring experiences that recognize participating customers as they arrive, present personalized digital menus, and make payment more effortless.”

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE:

If its pilot episode gets picked up by NBC, I’m sure The Great Gatsby as police procedural will make the book much more acceptable to younger readers…

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll

REQUIRED READING:

https://twitter.com/shipwreckedcrew/status/2116996693883572469DOJ/

DHS built an electronic spreadsheet with 30 columns of data explaining their verification.

LA County, California, and idiots in the press scream like stuck pigs that the list is inaccurate when their idiotic concern about “cyber security” meant they worked off a hard copy with only 8 columns of data.

Bookmark this post for later — it is going to turn out to be the case that the 20,000 name list is going to be quite accurate. Certainly not 100% because of multiple individuals having the same name in large counties, but it is going to be a significant percentage when all the analysis is done.

If there’s a better explanation for the county’s actions than “in your face cheating,” I don’t know what it is.

Posted at 10:22 am by Stephen Green

WE’LL KNOW THE OUTCOME SOON ENOUGH (Or a Month or So From Now):

Posted at 10:22 am by Ed Driscoll

BEST-SELLER ON GOD: Michel Yves-Bollore and Olivier Bonnassies are French co-authors of a 538-page deep-dive entitled “God: The Science, The Evidence – the dawn of a revolution.” First published in 2021 in French, this massive work came to the U.S. in 2025 and has sold more than 400,000 copies.

But this book is not a theological tome; it is rather an engaging chronicle of why and how, the authors contend, “we are living through an amazing moment in the history of knowledge. Advances in mathematics and physics have turned questions once thought to be forever beyond the reach of human knowledge — questions about the nature of time and eternity, it’s beginning, its end, and the improbably unfolding of the fine-tuning of the Universe, and of the appearance of life — into objects of scientific study.”

Written in a carefully detailed and easily understood prose that engages laymen in exploring the far frontiers of the possible, this is a book that  will still be read decades from now. Highly recommended and for a taste of it, check out this review on HillFaith, focused on the “Thermal Death” of the Universe. Not to worry, none of us will be around!

Posted at 9:56 am by Mark Tapscott

SOCIALISTS, I HATE THESE GUYS: Socialism on the ballot: Races to watch in the DSA orbit as the ‘squad’ may expand.

DSA-backed candidates could expand the socialist contingent in the House beyond prominent members such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.

Two DSA-endorsed candidates, Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York’s 13th Congressional District and Melat Kiros in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District, unseated established Democrats in their primaries. They have already discussed plans to demand policy concessions from Democrats running for speaker of the House, should the party win the majority next week.

In addition to Chevalier and Kiros, the DSA has endorsed Donavan McKinney (Mich., 13), Claire Valdez (N.Y., 7), Chris Rabb (Pa., 3), Angela Gonzales-Torres (Calif., 34), Mai Vang (Calif., 7), and Lauren Jewett (La., 1).

I have seen the future: The Democrat Party Is a Socialist Skinsuit. “Gordillo is here to tell you that not only is the Democrat Party dead, but he and his DSA comrades wear its skinsuit.”

Posted at 9:36 am by Stephen Green

THE SUPPLY OF CREEPY GIANT LEFTIST NGOS SEEMS ENDLESS:

Posted at 9:24 am by Glenn Reynolds

WE NEED MORE POWER, PERIOD:

Posted at 9:20 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: So…Anything Happening This Week? “Whatever happens on Tuesday (or whenever everything finally gets sorted out), we at least got to enjoy a wild 11th-hour surprise in Michigan yesterday. Democrats were trying to force a tortured Kumbaya moment between Abdul El-Sayed and the woman he defeated in the primary, Haley Stevens. That went over like the Titanic hitting the iceberg while the Hindenburg crashed into it as Milli Vanilli played on.”

Posted at 9:05 am by Stephen Green

CHANGE: Colombia’s ‘El Tigre’ takes fight to cartels as Trump alliance takes shape.

Colombia’s new president, known by the nickname of “El Tigre.” was voted in on a law-and-order ticket and so far his actions in fighting the cartels are seemingly paying dividends — not just in Colombia but in Washington, too.

Recently, he arrived at the Barranquilla police command around the early hours of the morning as 587 police officers and soldiers raided 50 locations across the Caribbean port city and its suburbs in Operation Blindaje 360. A few days earlier, domestic Colombian news outlets had widely publicized a recording intercepted by Colombian police of “Keko,” the alleged leader of a gang called “Los del Freseo,” boasting that de la Espirella had nothing on him.

“The Tiger’s got nothing. Let him come out, and we’ll put lead in him,” Keko allegedly said on the recording.

Then, before dawn, Colombia’s president had tracked him down and was face to face with him, all caught on tape.

According to a video released by his presidential office, El Tigre told Keko the gang leader was “a tough guy on the phone… but the look of the fear on his face matched that of his many victims.” The sweep ended with 72 arrests.

They’re all tough guys against unarmed civilians.

Posted at 8:34 am by Stephen Green