CHRISTIAN TOTO: Adam Carolla Reveals More Proof of Hollywood Blacklist 2.0.

Adam Carolla isn’t a conservative, per se.

He’s pro choice, pro legal marijuana and you won’t catch him sporting a red MAGA hat.

He’s just not a doctrinaire progressive, and he knows hypocrisy when he sees it. That means he’s watched artists and crew members speak out on the latest political issues, both on camera and behind the scenes.

More importantly, he’s noticed who doesn’t say a syllable.

The silence is… enlightening.

THEY TOLD ME IF TRUMP WERE PRESIDENT WE’D HAVE OPENLY RACIST JUDGES ON THE BENCH. AND THEY WERE RIGHT!

Related: The Bigger Problem With Judge Ada Brown’s Woke Tirade: She Said The Quiet Part Out Loud About “White Saviors.” Many lawyers and judges harbor the “anti-racist” views that Judge Brown spewed, but have the mental faculties to keep it private. “There seems to be something seriously wrong with Judge Brown. Her behavior in court that has been reported in the press is extremely troubling. Her refusal to decide cases seems to be an abdication of her responsibility as a federal judge. And her unwillingness to participate in any disciplinary proceedings suggests something is amiss. I will hold off on opining on these issues in more depth, as I suspect more facts will come out.”

In a sane nation this would lead to impeachment.

But there is some comic relief: “The implication of Young’s defense is that a Latino person cannot be racist against African Americans. That claim is wrong on its face, even under the misguided intersectionality pyramid. The bigger problem is that Young, a lifelong liberal, is unaccustomed to being called a racist.”

THAT CERTAINLY LOOKS LIKE HIM:

TOURISM: Luxury cruise passengers stranded in Cambodia due to soaring fuel costs.

The US-based operator of the Villa Vie Odyssey said it was working with passengers on disembarkation plans and “temporary living arrangements”.

It is unclear how many were on board but the nearly 200m (656ft) vessel can carry up to 650 passengers. It departed Belfast in October 2024 for a “continuous voyage around the world”.

Global fuel prices have soared since the Iran war started earlier this year. The ship’s operator said the monthly fuel cost per cabin in parts of Asia has risen to as much as $8,000 (£6,000) from $1,800.

Ouch.

DEVELOPING…

Slowly — and too quietly for the rocket-curious — but still developing.

HMM: How California Voters Could Surprise the Machine.

“Two measures—Proposition 41, the Prohibit Excluding New State Taxes from Spending Limit and Require Special Tax Audits Initiative and Proposition 42, the Prohibit New Taxes on Retirement Holdings, Personal Assets, and Savings Initiative—are also on the November 3 ballot in California and contain competing measure provisions that would nullify Proposition 40 [the wealth tax] if all the measures are approved, but Propositions 41 and 42 receive more votes than Proposition 40.”

And then there is Prop. 43, a citizen initiative championed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the organization that was founded during the state’s 1978 tax revolt. In that year, beleaguered voters approved the legendary Prop. 13. Approved by a 65–35 percent margin, it has given California one of the lowest property tax rates in the U.S., and it remains one of the only reasons many small businesses and retired homeowners still survive.

For nearly 50 years, Prop. 13 has been attacked by the insatiable tax-and-spend progressives running California. Prop. 43, if approved by voters, will restore the original provisions of Prop. 13, including the requirement for a two-thirds vote on local special tax initiatives.

Altogether, these four ballot initiatives are transformative.

Voters will have their say in less than a week. And — who knows? — in a month or so, we might even know all the results.

EVERY TIME I THINK MAYBE WE AREN’T IN A BUBBLE, I SEE FIGURES LIKE THESE:

WHERE WILL YOU GO: When the flames in France reach the U.S., that is. It’s my latest Substack column and it points to the growing evidence of a very rough road that is quite possibly ahead for this nation. There’s also a revelation concerning Reagan’s “The Speech” of 1964.

INFRASTRUCTURE: Pentagon loans Stoke Space $150 million to build launchpad at Cape Canaveral. “The War Department yesterday awarded the rocket startup Stoke Space a $150 million conditional loan, with the money to be used to build a second launchpad at Cape Canaveral to launch the company’s proposed larger Nova Block 2 reusable rocket.”

Nova Block 2 will have basically the same specs and reusability as the retiring Falcon 9. There’s still so much medium-term demand for the Falcon 9 that its upcoming retirement is causing a bit of a panic in the industry.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

IF THERE’S ANYTHING LEFTIES UNDERSTAND, IT’S TAKING AND WIELDING POWER:

This is from the replies for the uninitiated: “The Blue Slip rule is far more consequential than most people realize. Ever wonder why most of the egregious fraud is in Blue States? It’s because they won’t let anyone in who isn’t on the left to prosecute.”

WASHINGTON WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE MUCH MORE THAN A PART-TIME SWAMP DWELLING:

“The system is totally dysfunctional and fundamentally unfair, whereby anyone who is not a Democrat has no chance of receiving a fair hearing, let alone justice, while Democrats themselves are completely shielded from accountability.”