Thanks to everyone who purchased Heavy Lifting yesterday! Thanks to your kind decision to take a chance on our book, it rocketed from 61,931 in the Amazon ranking to 1,023 this morning. If you had ever asked Cam and myself whether we would ever co-write a No. 1 bestseller in the Amazon category of "Men's Gender Studies" together . . . . no, we would not have predicted that. The great John J. Miller talked to me about the book on his literary-minded podcast. Meet Your New GOP Front-Runner! No, Not Just in Iowa . . . Nationally You know how Donald Trump likes to bring up the polls in his speeches and remarks? I think he may shake that habit pretty soon. Ben Carson has taken a narrow lead nationally in the Republican presidential campaign, dislodging Donald J. Trump from the top spot for the first time in months, according to a New York Times/CBS News survey released on Tuesday. Mr. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, is the choice of 26 percent of Republican primary voters, the poll found, while Mr. Trump now wins support from 22 percent, although the difference lies within the margin of sampling error. The survey is the first time that Mr. Trump has not led all candidates since The Times and CBS News began measuring presidential preferences at the end of July. No other candidate comes close to Mr. Carson and Mr. Trump. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida received 8 percent while former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, are each the choice of 7 percent of Republican primary voters. So Donald will come out with metaphorical guns blazing in Wednesday night's debate, right? It's easy to imagine that backfiring. Ben Carson has the highest favorable numbers of any GOP candidate. He has an 84 percent favorable rating among Iowa Republicans. Trump already made an out-of-the-blue comment about Carson's Seventh Day Adventist faith that some construed as a veiled criticism. Even people who aren't supporting Carson generally like him and respect him; how will they respond if Trump harangues and belittles Carson for two hours? For what it's worth, Nate Silver said yesterday: "Iowans are paying more attention to the race than people elsewhere in the country, so they may be early adopters of trends we'll see elsewhere. In other words, once Trump starts getting Iowa-type scrutiny in other states, he might fade." Trump and his fans can point to this detail in the New York Times/CBS poll: The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Oct. 21-25 on cellphones and landlines with 575 Republican primary voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus six percentage points for each candidate. Additional findings from the full poll will be published Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Back in 1983, We Took Russian Military Aid to Syria Extremely Seriously You may not have noticed that recently declassified documents indicate that the world came uncomfortably close to a nuclear exchange in November 1983. The Soviet Union concluded in May 1981 that the United States was preparing a first strike against them. In fall of 1983, NATO began a drill, Able Archer, simulating the command-and-control operations they would use in a nuclear first strike. The Soviets noticed increased communications between the United States and the United Kingdom -- this actually involved the invasion of Grenada -- and NATO practiced moving through all phases of escalation, from DEFCON 5 to DEFCON 1. The Soviets freaked out a bit, Eastern Bloc forces went on high alert, but thankfully the Soviets figured out that it was only a drill and cooler heads prevailed. David, a Morning Jolt reader, took a good look and realized that some of the events in the fictional scenario for the war-game of 1983 sound like the real life events of today. In the scenario, the non-specific hostile country was labeled ORANGE; NATO forces were labeled BLUE. --ORANGE providing political support and some arms deliveries to Iran. Also arms deliveries to Syria and South Yemen. U.S. expresses deep concern. --Gulf States feel threatened by growing ORANGE involvement in the area, seek U.S. military aid. U.S. sends military advisers and increases naval presence. --ORANGE steps up propaganda campaign against the West. --ORANGE condemns U.S. military presence and naval deployments in the Gulf area. The scenario builds to include Soviet -- er, ORANGE -- aggression in Finland and then-Yugoslavia, worsens with the use of chemical weapons, and the exercise plays out with this 
Yup, nuclear war. This was back when red lines really meant something. It's fascinating to think that back in 1983, the United States ran nuclear first-strike simulations that began with Moscow increasing its military role in the Middle East, arming Syria, and so on. Now the administration is trying to get Moscow to take a bigger role in the Middle East. Really. Josh Rogin and Eli Lake report: America's traditional Middle East allies, having run out of patience with President Barack Obama's policy in Syria, are now reaching out to a resurgent Russia -- even though it is bolstering the very dictator so many of them have pushed to leave power. Some in Washington see the new ties as a threat to U.S. interests, especially because the U.S. has worked since the 1970s to keep Russian influence out of the Middle East. But the Obama administration sees an opportunity. The State Department is now quietly encouraging U.S. allies to engage with Moscow, as part of Secretary John Kerry's quest to win Russian support for a political process in Syria. Why, it's almost as if Obama and Kerry either don't know or don't care that the Russian KGB was the incubator of all sorts of terrorist groups, from the Red Brigades to the Red Army Faction to the Palestine Liberation Organization, not to mention its giving assistance to Libya's terrorist allies. When the KGB was operating at peak power around the world, anti-Western terrorism thrived. And now Obama and Kerry are encouraging the Middle East to turn to a man who has been in the KGB for 40 years and was considered particularly ruthless by his peers. (You're a fool if you think a KGB man ever really leaves.) The Freedom Caucus Turned Traitor? Wait, Jim DeMint is now part of the "surrender caucus," according to Ann Coulter? 
Moments later, Agent Kujan realized Jim DeMint was Kaiser Rino the whole time. For what it's worth, Wesley Denton, Heritage's VP for communications, says DeMint didn't endorse in the race for Speaker of the House and didn't make calls in support of any candidate. Representative Louie Gohmert says otherwise. "I was really surprised that the head of the Heritage Foundation, Jim DeMint was making calls telling conservatives to back off their conservatism and back the guy for Speaker that doesn't just have a D, he has an F under the Conservative Review analysis," Gohmert said. I liked this comment from Rep. Mick Mulvaney, (R., S.C.): "Look, I imagine that there's theoretically a chance that [we] all went from being radical extremist crazies to Washington sellouts in 12 hours," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a Freedom Caucus leader. "But maybe a more likely narrative is that we really think that this is a good step for the conservative movement. And it's up to us to try to explain that to people, and that's what we've been doing." Late last week, Rush Limbaugh called Ryan "the new Cantor" and seemed to suggest the Freedom Caucus was acquiescing to the "donor class" agenda: Paul Ryan is the new Cantor, in my theory, in terms of moving the donor agenda. And what made me suspicious of this is, again, throw out the Jefferson Rule and demand unanimous support. These are the kind of things that you demand when you don't really want the job and you hold all the cards. Now, you would not think that the Freedom Caucus, the conservatives in the House, the Tea Party caucus, whatever you want to call them, no way would they go along with this, no way under the sun would they go along with this. But it looks like enough of them will. Now, Ryan said he needs 80% support from the Freedom Caucus and if he doesn't get that, then he's not gonna do this. And right now he doesn't have 80%. He might have 70 but he doesn't have 80. He got a majority, he's got a clear majority, but he doesn't have the 80% he said was necessary to equal unanimity. Well, we'll see if that actually makes him not want the gig or not seek it. Why are you shaking your head? (interruption) Yeah, he's already said he'd take the 70. Here's my point. I think that all of this was already arranged and agreed to before you and I heard a word of it. And when you and I first heard a word of it, it was presented as this just happened, it's happening spontaneously, all of a sudden they wanted Ryan, these are Ryan's demands. My point is all of this happened last week, two weeks ago, whenever. Long before this list of demands was ever made public there has been a plan to make Paul Ryan Speaker of the House. It's not spontaneous, and it isn't an accident or just the coming together of various unseen forces. If you're vehemently anti-Ryan, and 25 to 30 of the 40 Freedom Caucus members vote for him, what do you do? What do you do if you conclude that only 10 to 15 members of the House are really standing up for your values the way you want? Then again, maybe nobody is ever good enough. Dave Bossie is now making the argument that Trey Gowdy wasn't the right man for the job of heading up the Benghazi Select Committee. Over at Red State, Jay Caruso has a good piece on "Tea Party" groups that keep asking for donations to help Trey Gowdy become speaker . . . even though he has said many times over that he's not interested in the job. ADDENDA: By the time you read this, I will have appeared on Chris Stigall's morning program and this evening, around 6:30 Eastern, I am scheduled to appear on God's Country with Ted Flint. Tomorrow morning, I'll be joining the great Bloomberg columnist and Megan McArdle for a panel chat entitled, "So You Want to Be a Columnist!" organized by the good folks at the America's Future Foundation. Check it out here. | 
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