Five Things
-
Five Things: Thursday, November 5
Good morning. Here is what matters today, in five.
1. Abolish-ICE group, paid by taxpayers, ran a voting station. California has handed the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles over $100 million since 2019. City Journal reporters went undercover, found an official county voting center inside its headquarters, and say a staffer read them the group’s endorsements line by line. via City Journal.
Nothing says nonpartisan 501(c)(3) like a mariachi band and a Karen Bass endorsement.
2. Iowa just made raising income taxes a two-thirds vote. Voters passed Amendment 1 with 56.2 percent, so any hike to the state’s 3.8 percent flat income tax now needs a two-thirds legislative supermajority. It lands the same night Democrat Rob Sand won the governorship, with a budget deficit above $1 billion waiting. via The Center Square.
3. A World Series champ is going to Congress. Mark Teixeira, three-time All-Star and 2009 Yankees champion, took Texas’s 21st District with 54.5 percent, holding Chip Roy’s old Hill Country seat for Republicans on a bad night. Republicans lost the House and gained a first baseman with 409 career home runs. via The Daily Wire.
4. Talarico, one day in: kill the filibuster. Texas Senator-elect James Talarico told NBC News the filibuster is a “Jim Crow relic” and Democrats should abolish it once they hold the chamber. Chuck Schumer, whose minority leaned on it for two years, would not say what his caucus will do. via The Daily Wire.
The filibuster was sacred democracy for two years. Its expiration date was Tuesday night.
5. Security guard stops a gunman at Citibank’s Tampa campus. A man drove a sedan through a fence into an outdoor lunch area near Brandon, Florida, on Wednesday, shot and killed a woman, and wounded four others before a Citibank security guard shot him dead in the cafeteria, two minutes after the first 911 call. via The Daily Wire.
See, that was better than doom scrolling. Now share this with a friend.
-
Barack Obama
Former president, Washington, D.C. Known for: hope, change, and very firm opinions on interior design.
Certified LeftistHonored for his ability to relate to the common man. While stumping for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton in Cleveland, the ex-president once again reminded the American working-class that he has more in common with his neighbors in Martha’s Vineyard, than with them. While discussing President Trump’s recent White House renovations, Mr. Obama, whose own presidential library was mocked most recently by Scott Bessent as Darth Vadar’s tomb, felt the need to look down his nose at one of America’s great restaurants. The Rightist Editorial Staff has your back, Cheesecake Factory!
“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
Source: Campaign rally, Cleveland, Oct. 24, 2026, via Fox NewsPhoto: Pete Souza, The White House, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
More jabs on the Satire page →
Top Story
News
-
Voters approved abortion rights measures in two states, Nevada and Virginia, rejected a rights measure in Idaho, and a repeal in Missouri
Voters in four states decided abortion-related ballot measures in 2026. Here are the results and what they mean. Of the three measures to establish a state right to abortion, two…
-
Voters approved five of six measures to explicitly limit voting in state and local elections to U.S. citizens
Voters in six states decided ballot measures related to citizenship requirements for voting on Nov. 3. Here are the results and what they mean. Voters approved five measures and defeated…
-
President Trump has appointed 56 federal judges through Nov. 1 of the second year of his second term
President Donald Trump (R) has appointed, and the U.S. Senate has confirmed, 56 Article III federal judges through Nov. 1, 2026, the second year of his second term. This is…
Opinion
-

Voter ID is on five ballots today. Notice who stopped arguing against it.
Eighty-three percent of Americans back photo ID to vote, Democratic nominees in Nevada and Ohio have stopped fighting it, and only California is still paying to keep it out.
-

Tuesday was a rejection of MAGA, not of conservatism
Voters punished tariffs and a war they never asked for. Republicans who read that as a verdict on free markets will lose again.
-

Brussels Eyes Europe’s Savings
How Brussels is turning household savings into an instrument of public policy.
Satire
-

French Students Demand Better Schools, Set Fire to Existing Ones
“You cannot have an outdated education system if you no longer have an education system,” one protester explained.
-

Local Progressive Stunned to Discover Higher Taxes Also Apply to Him
“I assumed the higher rates were for other people,” the man explained, refreshing his bank app.
From Our Allies
-
From Our Allies: Thursday, November 5
The best of the day from the Allies. Headlines link to the original; we add a line on each.
Inside CHIRLA’s Secret Voter Campaign
City Journal — Reporters went undercover at the state-funded Los Angeles immigrant group’s election event and found an employee walking them through ballot endorsements beside an official voting station.
On the Road to a Financial Market Crisis
American Enterprise Institute — Desmond Lachman warns that rising Treasury yields, unsustainable deficits and heavy leverage in bonds, stocks, AI and real estate point toward a financial crisis.
What Universities (Say They) Teach: The Spread of Progressive Language in College Course Catalogs
Manhattan Institute — A study of 7.3 million course listings at 111 universities since 2000 finds progressive-themed language more than doubled while Western-canon references slipped.
‘Billionaire Tax’ Appears Defeated in California, But Soak-the-Rich Approach Gains Traction Elsewhere
Washington Free Beacon — By Ira Stoll: “Election results from a series of state ballot initiatives on tax issues suggest that the wave of Democratic victories may be more about gas prices and anti-Trump sentiment than any overwhelming voter enthusiasm for “tax the rich” policies.”
Find all of them on our Allies page.
