I’m wondering if the people who watched the entire Benghazi! Committee hearing yesterday have recovered. I expect I’d be ready for a non-political weekend.

Here are some midday Friday news/views treats:

* Dr. Ben Carson seems to suggest the “secular progressive movement” might want to bump him off because he’s an “existential threat” to its nefarious tyrannical schemes.

* Another bad sign for Jeb: Megyn Kelly asks Jeb Bush if he’s going to drop out of the presidential race.

* One more bad sign for Jeb: analysis at National Review calls him “toast” because of his terrible low-dollar fundraising numbers.

* At the Prospect Adele Stan argues that behind all the Hillary-hatred lies a threatened patriarchy.

* At the Atlantic, Molly Ball mulls the utterpointlessness of Linc Chafee’s now-abandoned presidential bid. But then she’s many years away from the what-now? panic of the retiree, isn’t she?

And in non-political news:

* Hurricane Patricia, currently packing the highest winds ever recorded for such a storm, due to hit Pacific Coast of Mexico tonight.

As we break for lunch, here’s Boozoo Chavis with “Johnny Billy Goat.”

YouTube video

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Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.