Five Things
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Five Things: Wednesday, November 11
Good morning. Here is what matters today, in five.
1. Texas cities race to go sanctuary before Hinojosa takes office. Three days after Democrats swept Texas, Houston Mayor John Whitmire signed an order limiting when city police may contact ICE, and other cities are drafting their own before Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa takes office. via The Daily Wire.
2. Prices jumped 0.4% in October. The annual rate? Nobody knows. Consumer prices rose 0.4% last month, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics cannot publish a yearly figure because last fall’s shutdown left no October 2025 data. Economist Heather Long’s estimate: about 4%, enough to erase the typical worker’s 3.1% raise. via The Center Square.
3. Hunter Biden gets a medal for public discourse. Really. Trinity College Dublin’s debating society handed Hunter the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse on Tuesday, with Joe and Jill in the room. Pro-Palestinian protesters pelted the former president’s party with milk on the way out, and two were arrested. via The Daily Wire.
An award for public discourse. The laptop, presumably, was the body of work.
4. Washington checked 11 of 17,000 vendors, blessed $2.9 billion. Vendor payments at Washington state’s Department of Social and Health Services rose from $5.7 billion in 2021 to $8.6 billion in 2025. The state auditor flagged more than 1,000 fast-growing vendors, looked closely at 11, and pronounced the surge legitimate. via The Center Square.
Eleven out of seventeen thousand is not an audit. It is a tasting menu.
5. Fort Worth sweep nets 141 arrests and 41 machine-gun converters. Operation New Day, a 75-day federal push hundreds of miles from the border, charged 141 people in Fort Worth with drug trafficking, firearms crimes, illegal reentry and child exploitation, seizing 45 kilograms of meth and 41 machine gun conversion devices. via The Center Square.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Congresswoman, New York’s 14th. Known for: the Green New Deal, a Met Gala dress, and a twelve-year countdown.
Honored for giving the planet a firm deadline. In January 2019 she announced that the world would end in twelve years if we did not address climate change. Setting aside the fact that the world already ended for Republicans last week, her prediction for the rest of humanity’s extinction was set for 2031. When the line drew laughs, she explained it had been dry humor and sarcasm, making it the first climate policy ever walked back as a joke. We have our calendars marked either way.
“The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change, and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?”
Source: MLK Now event, New York, Jan. 21, 2019Photo: U.S. House Office of Photography via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
More jabs on the Satire page →
Top Story
News
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Prices up 0.4% in October; shutdown wiped out annual inflation rate
(The Center Square) – Consumer prices rose 0.4% in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday, but the agency could not say how much prices have risen over the…
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Parental rights org warns DSA works to influence nation’s children
(The Center Square) – Parental rights organization the American Parents Coalition released a “Lookout” notification for parents detailing how it says the Democratic Socialists of America is attempting to influence the…
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Three Iranian men indicted on terrorism charges in New York
(The Center Square) – Three Iranian men have been indicted on terrorism charges in New York, including for a plan to commit a terrorist attack at a British Royal Air Force…
Opinion
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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.
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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.
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Brussels Eyes Europe’s Savings
How Brussels is turning household savings into an instrument of public policy.
Satire
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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.
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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
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From Our Allies: Wednesday, November 11
The best of the day from the Allies. Headlines link to the original; we add a line on each.
SCOTUS Opens Door For Trump To Expand Border Wall
The Daily Wire — The justices voted 8-1 to let construction resume on roughly 340 miles of wall and surveillance in Texas’ Big Bend Sector, over environmentalists’ objections.
For the DSA, Electoral Success Poses Its Own Dilemmas
City Journal — Jake Altman says the DSA’s midterm gains, including eight House seats, will collide with moderate Democrats and its own extreme wing as it eyes 2028 primaries.
‘Shut It Down’ Effort Accelerates at Harvard as Second Union Joins Strike
Washington Free Beacon — By Ira Stoll: “Now Harvard doesn’t just have President Trump on its case, it also has an additional confrontation with the president of the United Auto Workers, Shawn Fain.”
Campaigning for Hearts, Minds, and Models
American Enterprise Institute — John Bailey and Julia Torres found nearly one in four of 285 campaign websites now publish files written to steer AI chatbots toward the candidate’s own materials.
Find all of them on our Allies page.