Read it.

Well, banning guns certainly made everybody safer, didn’t it?

Read it.

‘Never let a crisis go to waste.’

Read it.

When government seeks to enact laws that harm your interests, should you have a right to speak out to defend yourself?

The Seattle City Council recently voted to shut down such public dissent. Using foreign attempts to interfere with U.S. elections as an excuse, the city council passed a bill to retaliate against American companies that had opposed an onerous city tax on employers. The move is the latest in a string of attempts around the country by politicians to enact campaign finance restrictions to immunize themselves from public accountability.

That’s what you get when Democrats run your city.

Read it.

Fortunately, they can do that in America. Overseas? Not so much.

Read it.

In the one year since New York City implemented a mandatory $15 minimum wage, businesses have been struggling with the increased labor costs, Fox News reported previously. “They’re cutting their staff. They’re cutting their hours. They’re shutting down,” said Queens Chamber of Commerce president, Thomas Grech – who reports seeing an uptick in small business closures over the past six to nine months. “It’s not just the rent.”

Bronx Chamber of Commerce president Lisa Sorin notes that the increase has hurt small businesses the most, while Manhattan employers and their customers can afford to pay more to compensate. “It’s almost like a whirlwind of keep up or get out,” she said.

Read it.

That’s what happens when you let Democrats run your health insurance.

ZMan passes the popcorn.

According to official media, the House Democrats are finally ready to send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate for a trial. Assuming it actually happens, the trial will be a circus to allow the various crackpots and show ponies to perform for the cable news audiences. Everyone will pretend it is serious until the ratings come in from the polling operations and then the show will close. The only people who think otherwise are the cranks and weirdos on the Left.

That said, the inner party has permitted this charade to happen for more than just theatrical reasons. They have an election show scheduled for this year and that will provide plenty of entertainment. The Iowa Caucuses are a little over two weeks away and the New Hampshire primary is three weeks away. That’s more than enough entertainment to keep people from noticing too much. The question then is why are they bothering with this straight-to-video impeachment show.

…

In current year America, the ruling class is now fully detached from the society over which it rules, so it has begun to acquire its own moral code. You see this in the Democrat primary where candidates are running around preaching about the plight of transvestites or lecturing on white privilege. To normal people, these are bizarre fetishes that have to salience. Inside the ruling class they have become important moral signifiers, rooted in the common morality of the ruling class.

Joel Kotkin reminds us of some inconvenient truth.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Legislature and the state’s bureaucracy claim to be addressing the state’s much discussed “housing crisis.” But rather than improve the state’s awful affordability crisis, the policies being enacted are precisely the wrong medicine, more akin to witch-doctoring than a scientific curative.

Democrats are turning California from a paradise into a turd-world country.

Read it.

This is the future, I’m afraid. A future that plans on everything going right so no one has to think about what happens when things go wrong. Because computers don’t make mistakes. An automated future where no one actually knows how things work. A future where people are so far removed from the process that they stand around powerless, unable to take the reigns. A future where people don’t remember how to help one another in person. A future where corporations are so obsessed with efficiency, that it doesn’t make sense to staff a theater with technical help because things only go wrong sometimes. A future with a friendlier past.

As it says on our masthead, “We have seen the future, and it sucks.”

Jim Goad mau-maus the flack-catchers.

Because we are forced to parrot the transparent inanity that the only difference between us is “skin color,” whenever we hear about any statistical disparities between racial groups in America, we are only permitted to publicly blame such differences on “racism.”

Read it.

A tragic and irreparable loss.

John Derbyshire.

Big news of the week: the arm-wrestling bout with Iran. Again, as I said last week, there is no market here for Great Game strategizing. I’d like for us to tip over the chess-board and walk away.

I agree. We’re wasting our time there trying to drag these mudbloods into the modern world.

Read it.

A Democrat lawmaker in Vermont introducsed a bill that would ban the use of cell phones for anyone under 21, although he said the legislation won’t likely pass — and he might not even vote for it.

Democrats are insane.

Read it.

Hammer tech.

Read it.

One of the fastest growing criminal networks in Europe is now the Nigerian mafia, which is spreading its criminal activities across the continent. It consists of rival groups such as Black Axe, Vikings and Maphite. Most recently, authorities in Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Malta conducted an international operation directed at two of the major Nigerian mafia groups. Police accused the gangs of human-trafficking, drug trafficking, robbery, extortion, sexual violence and prostitution.

Nigeria is where Cardi B wants to move to get away from Trump. I suggest that it would be perfect for her.

Read it.

Cue Iranians blaming it on the U.S. Wait for it….;

UPDATE: Video Captures Alleged Moment Missile Strikes Boeing 737 Over Tehran

Read it.

I think we need a wall down there.

Read it.

How about that GREAT government-provided health care? Don’t you wish we had a system like that in the U.S.?

Read it.

California proceeds apace in destroying its own economy through totalitarian legislation.

In that, it serves as a useful example for other states of what NOT to do.

Read it.

How about that GREAT government-provided healthcare? Don’t you wish we had that in the U.S.?

Read it.

That’s democracy for you.

Steve Sailer does a little fisking.

I suspect we are going to hear increasing numbers of calls for abolishing the Secret Ballot. How can Morgan Freeman win enough awards if people are allowed to not vote for him privately? All voting must be public to make sure the Right People win.

Read it.

A GAO study released in early 2019 detailed ongoing, critical problems in recruiting, training and sustaining front-line and support personnel across all services and at all levels and, purportedly, the Pentagon has no comprehensive strategy to address them. Given millennials’ attitudes toward the military, this situation will likely worsen.

Jobs Americans Won’t Do? This sounds like a job for ILLEGAL MEXICANS!  Duh-duh-DUH.

Read it.

Two men in the Tesla and one woman in the car that was struck were all taken to the hospital in critical condition.

Meanwhile – stop us if you’ve heard this one before – the Tesla’s battery then began “exploding on scene”, prompting a hazardous materials team to show up. Photographs show the front end of the Tesla completely destroyed and ravaged by flames.

Hammer tech.

Read it.

Racists are obsessed with race, and they can’t see anything without dragging race into it.

Read it.

That’s what happens when Democrats run your county.

Read it.

For the past ten years, I have written a lengthy year-end series, documenting some of the dominant narratives and trends in education technology. I think it is worthwhile, as the decade draws to a close, to review those stories and to see how much (or how little) things have changed.

Read it.

A Chinese airline passenger who threw coins into a plane engine while boarding in a bid to ensure a safe journey has been ordered to pay 120,000 yuan (£13,115) in compensation to the airline.

Twenty-eight-year old Lu Chao, who was flying with Lucky Air, was ordered to pay the fine after the airline had to cancel the flight to search for the coins.

China went straight from ancestor-worship to Communism, so they’ve never really known a reason-based social system.

Couple that with all of the endangered species being killed for ‘traditional Chinese medicine’ and it becomes clear that China is in many respects really rather primitive.

Read it.

In June of this year the China Tribunal delivered its Final Judgement and Summary Report.1 An independent committee composed of lawyers, human rights experts, and a transplant surgeon, the Tribunal was established to investigate forced organ harvesting on the Chinese mainland. These rumours have haunted the country for years—lurid tales of the fate suffered by members of the banned Falun Gong religion after being taken into police custody. Their organs, so the rumours go, are cut from their bodies while they are still alive, and then transplanted into waiting patients.

Read it.

The drive to widen applicants at universities has led to a sharp increase in dropouts, claim experts following new analysis.

Two thirds of universities and colleges have seen an increase in the proportion of students dropping out in the last five years.

A new analysis shows that in some cases, non-continuation rates have risen by more than five percentage points.

Experts have said they believe the sharp increase is due to universities admitting more students “who can’t cope”.

The proglodyte push to get everyone into college flies in the face of the demonstrated fact that not everyone is capable of doing that level of work. But proglodytes are firmly convinced that everybody is equal and so everybody is equally capable of doing college-level work, so they set their victims up for failure.

Read it.

The private firm, which provides neighbourhood policing to residents, firms and shops, says it has set up a new prosecution unit after its teams have apprehended shoplifters, pickpockets and drug dealers only to be told by officers called to the scene to release them.

The former senior Metropolitan police officers who run the My Local Bobby service blame cuts in police numbers which meant officers were reluctant to spend time and valuable resource investigating and prosecuting minor offences.

A breakdown in law enforcement is the first step on the road to being a ‘failed state’.

UPDATE: Tens of thousands of thieves are escaping justice, Telegraph analysis reveals

UPDATE: Just one in 100 thieves being charged in parts of Britain – How good is your police force at solving crime?

Read it.

Cue exit of good teachers from California schools.

The bad ones will stay, of course, because they’re only there for the paycheck.

No teaching will get done.

More people will leave California for, say, Texas.

Welcome to the Turd World.

Read it.

Two women attacked a Jewish man in Brooklyn Wednesday when he tried filming their anti-Semitic slurs, according to law enforcement sources and witnesses who spoke with the New York Post.

They also yelled “F— you Jew” and “I will kill you Jews” when he started filming them.

Police in New York City have gotten at least 12 reports of attacks possibly propelled by anti-Jewish bias since Dec. 13.

The man attacked Wednesday – a 22-year-old Hasidic man – was taunted by two African American women who taunted him with anti-Semitic slurs, per the Post.

People of Color behaving badly … what are the odds?

UPDATE: Liberal Jew: ‘Baseless Hatred’ by Blacks Is ‘Stark Contrast’ to White Supremacy

Read it.

That’s what happens when Democrats run your state.

Read it.

Our long-term Tesla Model 3 broke down on Christmas Day. While parked.
This is the first time we’ve ever had a long-term car suffer a catastrophic failure while parked, and also the first time we’ve been alerted to our being stranded by a push notification from a mobile app.
Although the tow truck was extremely quick to arrive, we’re now in an unknown holding pattern waiting for parts.

Hammer tech.

Read it.

Hammer tech.

Read it.

Cancer helplines are facing a surge in calls from patients because overstretched NHS doctors and nurses do not have time to care for them, a charity has warned.

Macmillan Cancer Support said it had received more than 240,000 inquiries to its support line in 2019, with staff reporting that many patients were left distressed because they felt they could not question the health workers in charge of their care.

How about that GREAT government-provided health care? Don’t you wish we had a system like that in the U.S.?

Bernie and Lieawatha sure do.

Read it.

Forty-two homeless people in Los Angeles were the victims of homicide in 2019, the third consecutive year in which the number has risen, NPR reported on Tuesday.

This increase is happening even as the number of homicides overall has fallen in recent years. This has led to a reality that while only 1% of the city’s residents are homeless, that segment of the population makes up approximately 17% of the homicide victims in Los Angeles during 2019.

Read it.

Hammer tech.

Read it.

Hammer tech.

Washington Examiner.

Maybe Democrats have decided that, in the era of President Trump, honesty is no longer required. Or maybe Elizabeth Warren is just too insecure to tell the truth about her own life.

Whatever the reason, the Massachusetts senator has built her campaign on a foundation of exaggerations and misrepresentations.

Read it.

At least 5 people have been stabbed after a black male entered Rabbi Rottenburg’s Shul, located in the Forshay neighborhood in Monsey, New York, and pulled out a machete.

Read it.

Federal authorities arrested Fidel Alejandro Villegas, the police chief of Janos, a small town in the state of Chihuahua, earlier this week, Mexico’s Public Security Ministry announced Friday. Villegas is suspected of not only being involved in local organized crime, but of also having a hand in the killings that took place in November.

Read it.

That’s what happens when Democrats run your city.

Steve Sailer.

That’s what happens when Democrats run your city.

Read it.

As homelessness surged to crisis levels in California in 2019, so did the violent attacks on people living in tents and on sidewalks and the political and law enforcement efforts to keep homeless encampments off the streets.

Read it.

Your doctor does not express your diagnosis in words such as arthritis, asthma, or heart failure. If a physician or hospital wants to be paid, they must use a letter-number diagnosis listed in the International Classification of Disease (ICD-10) code book, which turns 1,400 human ailments into more than 68,000 codes. Examples of these “diagnoses” include: W55.21 (bitten by a cow); W61.33 (pecked by a chicken); V00.01 (pedestrian on foot injured in collision with roller blader); Z63.1 (problem with in-laws); and my personal favorite, Y92.146 (injured at a swimming pool within a prison).

Once a diagnostic code is established, you expect the doctor to recommend the correct treatment by the most experienced operator in the best facility at the optimal time given your medical condition. In reality, you will receive whatever the insurance carrier allows, whenever the carrier allows it, at a contracted facility, by a specialist on the insurance carrier’s panel. All those medical choices are made by nameless, faceless bureaucrats, not your personal medical caregiver.

Read it.

In what is believed to be a first, a school district in Virginia is to allow students a day off from their classes in order to attend protests.

Fairfax County will permit students in seventh through 12th grades, aged 11-18, one excused absence each school year for loosely defined “civic engagement activities”.

This is what happens when your school district is run by Democrats.

Your tax dollars at work.

Do not send your kid to a government school. You won’t like the result.

Read it.

Murkowski does the RINO dance for Christmas.

The chief difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats never lose sight of which side they’re on.