FreeThink.

Not a high bar, I’m thinking.

Freeberg nails it.

I’m seeing this pattern…

There is a tagline for committed “conspiracy theorists” and “nutcases.” In the case of January 6, it would be something along the lines of “We have a ‘Deep State‘ and they arranged this spectacle.” For the 2020 election, it was “democrat activists coordinated within & across state lines to fraudulently bump up Joe Biden’s vote count in the key battleground states.” For COVID, it’s “The virus is a bioweapon that was grown in a Chinese lab.” And in general for all things related to Donald Trump, it’s “Hollywood is opposed to him because they’re full of perverts, pedophiles and pederasts who belong in jail and they don’t want him putting them there.”

For a year or two, everybody is watching, and everybody’s watching everybody else watching. Passing judgment on who’s a nutcase and who isn’t. And you gutterball yourself if you say anything approaching even a watered-down version of the tagline…

“Fact checkers” emerge to “debunk” the tagline. Once and for all! But also, repeatedly, like a lab rat hooked on amphetamine.

And then after a little bit of time, when 90% or so have stopped watching…the tagline that clearly called out the most obvious nutcases…migrates. It becomes not quite so nutty. Then it becomes more probable. Then it becomes a likelihood. And then, one by one, all the alternative explanations are logically ruled out and this one is the only one left standing.

Read it.

Since she began speaking out against trans athletes competing in women’s sports, former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines has received her share of threats from the mob. Just this year, she was allegedly punched by a transgender protester in California. Now she finds herself in the sights of one of Trumpworld’s most rabid advocates.

Laura Loomer, a self-described investigative journalist and Trump supporter, accused the athlete of shilling for Ron DeSantis and posted her address to X, sparking a cat fight between the two women.

In the post, which has since been deleted, Loomer claimed that Gaines had been bought off by DeSantis. “In June 2023, Riley announced that she was endorsing DeSantis over Trump,” the post read. “FEC records show that she was paid out on 8/02/2023 for endorsing Ron.” Loomer also included Gaines’s address, which is on the FEC filing, in her post.

Gates of Vienna.

I first started researching Tablighi Jamaat almost eighteen years ago, in December of 2005. That was not long after I began investigating Jamaat ul-Fuqra. The results of web searches for both organizations overlapped, due to the commonality of the word “Jamaat” — that’s how I found Tablighi Jamaat.

[“Jamaat” means “community”, or “group”, or “association”. Jamaat ul-Fuqra is the “community of the impoverished”, while Tablighi Jamaat means, roughly, “association of preachers”.]

Back then Tablighi used to skate by without being declared a terrorist group, because it never engaged in any of the wetwork itself. It was billed as an educational group, and the bombing and throat-slitting were always done by some other outfit — Jamaat ul-Fuqra, Al Qaeda, and some years later the Islamic State.

Based on the following investigative report from Italy, Tablighi Jamaat is now a rising star in the world of Islamic supremacism. It is unabashed in its assertion that Islam will eventually conquer Rome and other infidel lands, and that the conquest will require a massive amount of bloodshed.

Read it.

Just in case you were thinking of giving it a try, be warned: Nobody will be able to write a competent history of 20th-century American politics without absorbing the themes and revelations in the new book by Luke Nichter, The Year that Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968. A history professor at Chapman University and the biographer of Henry Cabot Lodge, among others, Nichter is widely understood and rightly admired as a tireless researcher—though “tireless” doesn’t quite cover it: In his quest to transcribe most of the hopelessly garbled and obscure audio tapes left behind by Richard Nixon after his presidency, Nichter eventually lost most of his hearing in one ear. It’s not often that we history buffs get our own martyr.

I remember 1968. It was not a good year.

Read it.

“Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.” The sentiments underlying Joe Biden’s mid-2020 statement would be affirmed today not only by center-left American opinion but also those significant segments of American conservatism that have fallen seriously out of love with free markets.

Friedman died on November 16, 2006. His influence at that point upon economics and economic policy remained considerable. Friedman’s ideas on topics ranging from school choice to monetary policy were a major reference point for the American right, but also parts of the left. Exemplifying the latter was former Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration Larry Summers. He went from regarding Friedman as a “devil figure” in his youth to seeing him as someone whose ideas on many subjects merited respect.

The awe in which Friedman was held started unraveling after the 2008 financial crisis, and there’s little question that some of his ideas lost traction over the subsequent decade. That is part of the background to a new biography of Friedman. In Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative, Jennifer Burns, a Stanford history professor and research fellow at the Hoover Institution where Friedman spent the last three decades of his career, has authored a comprehensive study of the economist’s life in the world of ideas.

WATCH: Joe Biden’s Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 69)

Pentagon turns to press flaks and academics to help fight information wars

Hunter Biden’s career of benefiting from his father’s name (Washington Poop) The Crust gears up to ease Creepy Joe out of the Presidential slot.

The COVID Caper Gradually Unravels

CDC Claims On Vaccination And Natural Immunity Made Without Seeing Underlying Data: FOIA Document

Only 3.6% of Americans Got Updated COVID-19 Shots as of Oct. 31

Why So Many Countries Followed China’s Lockdown Example  Life (for the ruling  class) would be SO much easier if we were all just Communist dictatorships. Ask Thomas Friedman.

New Email Shows Fauci Adviser Suggesting He Destroyed Records

CDC CCP

NYC Mayor Adams Begins Legal Fund Amid Campaign Probe

Stacey Abrams’ Brother-In-Law Arrested, Accused Of Human Trafficking, Choking Underage Girl

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ lawyer says Cassie abuse, rape lawsuit settlement was not an ‘admission of wrongdoing’  Nah, she was just in it for the money.

Californians Set Up President Xi Dummy So Newsom Will Keep The Cities Clean All The Time (Babylon Bee)

Osama Bin Laden ‘Hope’ Poster Spotted On College Campuses (Babylon Bee)

Why neither Biden nor Trump will be the next president (The Hill)

A Trump-Biden Rematch Is the Election We Need (N.Y. Times)

2024 will probably be shaped by nonvoters as much as voters (Washington Poop)

FLASHBACK: Networks Ignored Dem Senator’s Tawdry Corruption Trial

CDC: Cannabis Worker Died on Job from Asthma

You shouldn’t be driving over 100 mph—and your car shouldn’t let you (Fast Company) “David Zipper” sounds like a fake name.

Land Ownership Makes No Sense (WOKE WIRED) Trade is impossible without property, and culture above that of hunter-gatherers is impossible without trade.

‘We Cannot Be Associated With Elon Musk,’ Says Tim Cook While Shaking Hands With Brutal Chinese Dictator (Babylon Bee)

Navy SEAL Causing Anti-Trans School Board Chaos Is Under Investigation (Daily Beast) Of course he is.

Navy SEAL Under Investigation for Extremist Activity After Fighting Transgender Rights in California (Military.com)

Navy SEAL Fighting Transgender School Policies Faces Investigation (Newsweek)

San Diego Navy SEAL under investigation for alleged extremist affiliations (KPBS)

The Bin Laden Letter Is Being Weaponized by the Far Right (WIRED) Really?

With antisemitic tweet, Elon Musk reveals his ‘actual truth’ (CNN) The witch-hunt continues.

X ad boycott gathers pace amid antisemitism storm (BBC) Musk refused to be cancelled quietly, so they pooped out this antisemitism hoax to kill his baby.

Elon Musk Plans “Thermonuclear” Lawsuit Against Media Matters  Unfortunately for the Crust, Musk is still a billionaire and pissing off a billionaire ensures that you spend the rest of your life in court.

‘No Difference’: Kinzinger Compares Johnson To The Taliban, Again

X is placing ads for Amazon, NBA Mexico, NBCUniversal, and others next to content with white nationalist hashtags (Media Matters for America) The witch-hunt continues.

Texas: Republican-controlled school board votes against climate textbooks (The Guardian) The reactionary swine!

The world’s largest single-site solar farm just came online (Electrec)

UAE Inaugurates Giant Solar Plant, Two Weeks Before Climate Talks (Barron’s)

UAE’s Masdar opens world’s largest single-site solar plant ahead of COP28 (Al-Monitor)

Masdar and partners inaugurate 2 MW single site solar farm (Energy Global)

Energy Companies Dominate The Top US Companies For Employee Retention

China cons US on green energy agenda

Offshore Wind Costs

Geothermal Everywhere: Finding the Energy to Save the World

The Harmful Side Effect of Cleaning Up the Ocean “Patches of floating plastic are teeming with life, and cleanup companies hauling trash out of the water risk destroying a marine habitat.”

Conservative voters in Iowa are open to moving on from Trump (NPR)

In Buffalo, Iowa, a community wrestles with Trump-fueled political apathy (NPR)

Colorado Judge Keeps Trump on Ballot but Finds He ‘Engaged in Insurrection’ (N.Y. Times)

Trump Engaged in Insurrection but Can Stay on Colorado’s Ballot Anyway, Court Rules (Daily Beast)

Read it.

Russell is used to getting woken up for a late-night delivery. But this foal was special. It was a clone of a rare Przewalski’s horse, a now-endangered species that once roamed the grasslands of central Asia. Crouched in the corner of the barn stall, Russell waited for its birth with anticipation. “When I saw toes and nose, I thought, ‘Whew, this is going as planned,’” he recalls.

You might be surprised that cloned animals exist—they do, but the procedure is mostly used for domesticated animals. Russell’s company, ViaGen Pets, clones around 100 horses a year, as well as cats and dogs.

Yet the technology has rarely been used for endangered animals. Up until that moment, cloning had only successfully produced a single animal of any such species. The new Przewalski’s horse, born in February and still unnamed, is the second of his kind. He’s a genetic copy of the world’s first cloned Przewalski’s horse, Kurt, who was born in August 2020. Both were made from cells frozen more than 40 years ago at the San Diego Zoo. The scientists behind the effort say this second birth is evidence that cloning could be a viable strategy for saving endangered species.

Read it.

John wrote here Sunday about the “National Vote Compact” (NVC), the proposal of the goo-goo (“good government”) reformers to get around the electoral college by having a majority of states agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. I agree with John that it is a loopy idea, though I’d love the spectacle of California someday having to cast its electoral votes for a narrow Republican national popular vote winner when the present system would elect a Democrat with California’s lopsided electoral vote bloc. I’m sure the compact would go down well in that case.

Read it.

For example, thinking that every dollar a rich person has was somehow stolen from a poor person. (As if poor people had anything worth stealing….)

Ars Technica.

While it’s not ready for production, it’s a step in the right direction.

Read it.

Now, researchers at MIT and Harvard University have developed an efficient process that can convert carbon dioxide into formate, a liquid or solid material that can be used like hydrogen or methanol to power a fuel cell and generate electricity. Potassium or sodium formate, already produced at industrial scales and commonly used as a de-icer for roads and sidewalks, is nontoxic, nonflammable, easy to store and transport, and can remain stable in ordinary steel tanks to be used months, or even years, after its production.

Read it.

It is striking how ‘far-right’ has become an all-purpose insult in Europe and the West. It is a label slapped on anybody who stands outside the narrow conformism of woke politics. Whether it’s parents protesting against drag queens preaching trans ideology to children, or citizens concerned about anything from the EU’s crusade against cars and farmers to the imposition of vaccine passports or mass migration, they are all apparently ‘far-right’ now.

The message is always that ‘these people’ are basically scum, beyond the limits of respectable debate, and should not be engaged with. Instead they should be cancelled, arrested or banned altogether.

Little wonder then that the police, politicians and media seized with relish on the ‘far-right’ counter protest in London on Armistice Day last weekend. They focused on a few hundred white working-class football fans who briefly skirmished with police near the Cenotaph on Whitehall (before respecting the two minutes’ silence for the war dead), as a welcome distraction from facing the truth about the massive ‘peaceful’ pro-Palestinian demonstration up the road, which was really an anti-Israeli, often antisemitic, hate march.

Read it.

The Jews are just a warm-up. Many people have made this observation, but this is a nice data point: earlier this year, Minnesota’s legislature enacted a statute that requires “Ethnic Studies” to be incorporated into every single class from kindergarten through 12th grade. Including math and biology.

And Minnesota is not alone. The “Ethnic Studies” dodge started in California, but it is expanding across the country. And “Ethnic Studies” is just one arrow in the Left’s quiver. The teachers’ unions have converted our public schools into anti-American propaganda centers, and this was well underway long before “Ethnic Studies” came along.

Read it.

When I see hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating, rioting, carrying signs, organized and following some kind of leadership, I always wonder: who paid for this? In the case of the anti-Semitism that currently is sweeping across America, there seems to be a pretty simple answer.

…

In general, the radical left is not a grass roots movement. It exists due to the largesse of a tiny number of rich leftists.

Read it.

In 1957, Albert Memmi addressed the question of the Left’s relationship with terrorism in his book, The Colonizer and Colonized. Memmi was a Tunisian Jew, equally committed to socialist Zionism and anticolonialism. The Left tradition, he observed, “condemns terrorism” as “incomprehensible, shocking and politically absurd. For example, the deaths of children and persons outside the struggle.”

But Memmi’s suppositions were outdated even as he wrote. The history of the modern Left’s romance with terrorism—not the “old-fashioned” version aimed at czars or imperial officials, but the kind directed against unarmed civilians—had already begun. It started with the Algerian War and gained momentum throughout the 1960s, ’70s, and beyond with the emergence of the Red Brigades, the Baader Meinhof Gang, the Irish Republican Army, the Japanese Red Army, the Weathermen, and the panoply of organizations included in the Palestine Liberation Organization and, especially, its Rejectionist Front. The latter held pride of place: “For the Sixth International, the Palestinian resistance is a banner … an inspiration for the revolt of the dispossessed, both in its ends and in its means,” proclaimed Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, a prominent Egyptian leftwing intellectual and activist.

It was at this time that the oxymoronic and ethically repellent concept of what the late Middle East scholar, anti-colonialist, and socialist Fred Halliday criticized as “progressive atrocities” gained credence on the Left, particularly within the Palestinian movement and among the groups supporting it. Of course, the Palestinian national project—like Zionism—has always contained a variety of ideologies ranging from peaceful coexistence to the elimination of the other. (The latter tendency is appallingly prevalent among many members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government.) But it is no exaggeration to say that the Palestinian movement, even before the founding of Israel in 1948, has been defined by terror more than any other, and that terrorist groups have always been prominent within the movement.

Read it.

In the midst of the chaos that defined 2020—the early stages of the pandemic and widespread BLM riots—students at Stanford were at home for a quarter of remote learning. To accommodate for the newly adopted remote environment, Stanford made all courses pass-fail. Some unsatisfied students, however, decided to push for even greater concessions to further lower academic standards under the guise of racial justice.

“I am having trouble focusing on anything other than this and do not have the emotional capacity to complete schoolwork,” they said. “It is up to us, as non-black folks, to break the cycle of injustice and oppression, by doing things differently.” How differently?

Students cold emailed hundreds of professors to bring “special attention to the hardships Black students and faculty are currently enduring,” and they awaited a response, or lack thereof, from each of their professors. Students demanded that their professors express solidarity for racial justice causes and further strip academic standards by canceling projects, exams, and changing passing thresholds. Professors who met and supported the extreme demands of students to radically overhaul their academic standards received a green check. Those who didn’t—and retained even some basic academic standards, or those who merely did not make “any announcement acknowledging current events”—were blacklisted.

Bloomberg.

It seemed ambitious, verging on grandiose, when journalist Bari Weiss used her Substack newsletter in 2021 to reveal plans for a new university in Austin, Texas.

The project — to address the “gaping chasm between the promise and the reality of higher education” — was backed by prominent people in academia and finance, including the historian Niall Ferguson, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale.

But it was hard to envisage how exactly the University of Austin would get off the ground. There was no leafy campus, a glaring lack of accreditation and, of course, no network of notable alumni to entice new students. The idea of the little upstart being able to compete with Ivy League institutions to enroll the nation’s best and brightest seemed far fetched.

Two years on, UATX, as it’s known, is having a moment.

District Man Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Member of Congress and Two Police Officers (DoJ)

Mistrial Declared in Breonna Taylor Shooting

Eric Adams attended nearly 80 events celebrating Turkey (Politico)

BLM-Linked Provocateur John Sullivan Found Guilty On 7 Jan. 6 Criminal Counts

John Podhoretz: “Jews Are Not White”  Fooled me.

Race Does Not Exist

Groups fear faculty that defended Hamas could set California standards: ‘Institutionalization of antisemitism’ (Fox News)

Suppose They Threw a Cage Match Between Fascism and Democracy and Nobody Cared (Slate)

“Extremely Painful” NYC Budget Cuts Will Lead To Fewer New Police Hires, Reduced Trash Pickups  But not less immigration nor less government nannying.

ABC, CBS OMIT Arrest of Suspect In Death Of Pro-Israel Protester, NBC Weirdly Sandwiches Coverage Between Other Stories

NPR Host Inskeep Asks Jeffries About ‘Extreme Right Wing,’ Avoids Talk of Democrat Radicals

Don’t just be horrified. Ban AR-15s, bump stocks and large magazines. (Washington Poop)

Playbook: The case for triangulation on immigration (Politico)

The hidden biases at play in the U.S. Senate (Washington Poop) “People of color get significantly less representation than White voters. And that’s not the only way the Senate is skewed.”  The Narrative, straight up.

Nebraska Teen Slits Son’s Throat, Reddit User Blames Lack of Abortion Access

Target Doubles Down, Faces Conservative Backlash As ‘Woke’ Christmas Decor Hits Shelves

CBS News Reporter Faces Possible Contempt Charges

How UN Undermines Parental Rights by Pushing Gender Ideology

The View, Ed. Secretary Cardona Decry State Control of Curriculums

Good Guys (and Gals) With Guns Still Out There, as These 12 Examples Show

Teachers Conference Lecture Declares Math a ‘Tool of Oppression’

Newsom Is Mandating Education in Disinformation—While Spreading It Online

MCC: EU Abuses LGBT Rights to Discipline and Undermine Member States

Could evangelical leader’s endorsement upend Trump’s massive lead before Iowa’s caucus? (Fox News)

Donald Trump’s 2024 Trial Schedule Drifts Into Chaos (The Messenger)

Donald Trump Posts Tirade Against Judge, Court Clerk Hours After Gag Order Paused (Huffington Post) Apparently this came as a surprise to the AWFLs at HuffPo.

Trump Crosses a Crucial Line (The Atlantic) The witch-hunt continues.

The election interference case against Trump is taking shape (NPR) As the D.C. Crust figures out what they can get away with and what they can’t.

Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024 (The Economist)

The Economist names Trump “biggest danger” for 2024 (Axios)

CNN Airs New Tape of Trump Discussing Capitol Trip on Jan. 6 (CNN) Who cares?

ABC’s Karl Admits He Wrote Anti-Trump Book to Influence 2024 Election

Lying About Lying? Michael Cohen Appears To Confess To Prior False Statements Under Oath

Has Trump Gone Even Crazier? (Washington Monthly)

Trump legal ally fights ‘activist prosecutors’ in 2024 messaging preview (NBC News)

Trump says the quiet part out loud: He’ll destroy democracy (Washington Poop) Jennifer Rubin loses her shit.

Chutkan denies Trump motion to strike Jan. 6 language from indictment (The Hill)

Activists take Trump 14th Amendment fight to Michigan Supreme Court (The Hill)

Georgia Judge in Trump RICO Case Slaps Protective Order on Subpoenaed 2020 Election Records

On Stop the Steal: What If They Were Right?

As Musk endorses antisemitic conspiracy theory, X has been placing ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to pro-Nazi content (Media Matters for America)

Musk Replaced as APEC Speaker After Controversial Post. (NewsMax) Nothing can be permitted to get in the way of a witch-hunt.

WH Condemns Musk’s ‘Promotion’ of Anti-Semitism  Jumping on the dog-pile.

White House Condemns Elon Musk’s ‘Abhorrent’ Endorsement of Antisemitism (Bloomberg) Jumping on the dog-pile.

How R.F.K. Jr. Has Turned His Public Crusades Into a Private Windfall (N.Y. Times) Nothing can be permitted to get in the way of a witch-hunt.

IBM Immediately Suspends Advertising From X/Twitter After Discovering Its Ads Appeared Next to Pro-Nazi Content (Variety)

X Races to Contain Damage After Elon Musk Endorses Antisemitic Post (N.Y. Times) He did no such thing, of course, but they want everyone to believe that he did.

Santos calls Ethics Committee report a ‘dirty biased act’ that ‘tramples over all of my rights’ (The Hill) I don’t see any evidence of a referral to the DoJ for prosecution.

No more ads on Elon’s X, EU Commission tells staff (Politico)

EU Gets Busted ‘Microtargeting’ X Users, Rage-Quits Ad Campaign Citing ‘Misinfo’

Florida sued over ban on pro-Palestinian student groups (NBC News)

George Santos faces new motion to expel him from Congress (Washington Poop) Let not the new witch-hunts divert attention from the old witch-hunts.

House Ethics chairman introduces resolution to expel George Santos from Congress (CNN)

Hochul: ‘Very Happy’ to Call Election to Replace Santos

As the NRA fades, a more zealous US pro-gun group rises as a lobbying power (The Guardian)

VIDEO: Media HATE the Idea of Texas Enforcing Federal Immigration Law

Exclusive: Apple to pause advertising on X after Musk backs antisemitic post (Axios) ‘Ina Fried’ is a former male at one time known at ‘Ian Fried’.

Ga. Football Coach Fired After Hosting Baptisms

Lionsgate Has Suspended All Advertising on X, Spokesman Says (Bloomberg) Let’s all join the witch-hunt dogpile.

Canceling Magellan

Why Haven’t UAW Leaders Stood Up to Biden’s EV Mandates That Could Cost 400,000 Jobs?

Outrage Ensues After No Charges Likely In Biden Classified Document Scandal  Laws are for thee but not for me.

FAU Poll: Trump Leads Biden in Fla. Among Nonbinary Voters

DOUBLE STANDARD: Networks SUPPRESS News Of No Charges In Biden Classified Docs Case

Taliban Pocketing $2.5 Billion In US Taxpayer Humanitarian Aid: Inspector General  Democrats never tire of giving money to our enemies.

GAO: Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Lacked Fraud Prevention

Pentagon Fails To Account For Over $3 Trillion For 6th Year In A Row

Watchdog Exposes Fraud Risks In Biden’s Canceled $430 Billion Student Debt Relief Plan

Lawmakers Press FDIC Chief Over Misconduct Charges

Media Aren’t Quite Hackish Enough for Biden White House

The American Mind.

Until very recently, the term “decolonization” was familiar only to those within the hothouse of contemporary academia. The concept figures prominently in “cultural studies,” “ethnic studies,” and “postcolonial studies”—pseudo-disciplines that serve to disseminate leftist propaganda on campus. Decolonization supporters endorse the process of returning “occupied” lands to the groups who were displaced or marginalized by “settlers.” As much as academics talk about this topic, they say precious little about how decolonization is to be achieved. That’s smart, because short of the “colonizers” deciding to pick up and leave, “decolonization” can only be achieved through bloodshed.

These scholars don’t have any qualms about a little bloodletting if it advances the cause of social justice. Still, most are usually smart enough not to say the quiet part out loud. Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks on Israel, they couldn’t conceal their exuberance. On X/Twitter, a writer from Teen Vogue asked, “What did you think ‘decolonization’ meant? Papers? Essays? Vibes? Losers.” The idea was that we shouldn’t be offended by the brutality of Hamas: this is simply how decolonization works. This sentiment, “liked” by thousands of social media users, is an open endorsement of ethnic violence. One is left to wonder why the American university (historically, our loudest institution when it comes to opposing any warfare) has never challenged decolonial rhetoric, leaving it to flourish on campus.

Since the attacks last month, many universities have shown that they don’t simply tolerate these ideologies: they tacitly endorse them. Given that it is garden-variety campus activism, aiming to abolish the “decolonizing” rhetoric that justifies violence against “settlers” is something of a fool’s errand. We are better off pursuing a deeper understanding of the hypocrisies and contradictions inherent to decolonization, so we might more effectively challenge its claims and undermine its power. These contradictions are best illustrated by contrasting the usage of two related terms in public discourse: “settler” and “migrant.”

The Spectator.

Vice presidents are meant to be dependable — and in a funny way Kamala Harris is exactly that. Joe Biden knows that, no matter how bad his poll numbers, hers will be worse: she’s the most unpopular vice president since polling began, according to one recent survey. Biden can afford to be pitifully vague in public partly because she is so painfully annoying. He loses his thread; she loses the plot.

That’s one of the reasons why, for all the alarm in Washington circles about the commander-in-chief’s “job performance” and the distinct possibility that he might lose to Donald Trump next year, the Biden-Harris ticket seems locked in place for 2024. Why would Biden nominate someone else when Harris is so reliably unthreatening? Why would he move aside when she would be even more terrible?

The Spectator.

Eight years ago in Guyana, an Idaho-sized country on the northern coast of South America, ExxonMobil discovered massive oil reserves. So massive, that it’s speculated that the tiny nation, which is one of the least densely populated countries on the planet, could become the richest country per capita.

Estimates indicate that Guyana has around 11 billion barrels of oil equivalent, boosting the nation to the third position in terms of proven oil reserves in the region. To contextualize the enormity of these discoveries, consider that the tiny nation has almost five times more proven oil reserves than Argentina, a country thirteen times larger by land mass. Only Brazil, the fifth largest country, and Venezuela, the country with the largest proven oil reserves, surpass Guyana.

The State Department now finds an alternative to deal with on oil to Venezuela; after all, the US remains Guyana’s largest trading partner. But with opportunity comes discontent; not just from environmentalists, but primarily from Guyana’s problematic neighbor, which has had a territorial dispute with the former British territory since 1897.

The Spectator.

Welcome to Thunderdome, where the consensus view is that Ronna Romney McDaniel is a disaster. The longest tenured RNC chair in a century, McDaniel has navigated the Republican Party through one disappointing election after another, holding on to power simply because Donald Trump wants her to have the job and no one strongly qualified has chosen to challenge her for it. On the podcast today, we talk about McDaniel’s prospects, whether the RNC should ditch her, Nikki Haley’s social media botch and the rise of third-party threats to make 2024 even more chaotic.

Washington Free Beacon.

Anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protesters sure don’t like to be publicly identified with a cause they claim is righteous. Why is that?

The 100-plus congressional staffers who walked out of the Capitol on Nov. 8 to demonstrate their support for a ceasefire said they took action because they were “no longer comfortable staying silent.” But they wore masks to cover their faces.

Likewise, on college campuses, protesters have used keffiyehs to shield their identities and claimed that attempts to film the public protests amount to harassment.

Schools like Harvard and Columbia have made their views clear, forming “resource groups” for the doxxed. Harvard’s dean of students, Thomas Dunne, denounced doxxing as a “repugnant assault on our community.” His statement was less equivocal than university president Claudine Gay’s feeble attempts to condemn Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. No both-sidesism there!

Of course, there is nothing these schools can do to protect students from doxxing by the press—the Washington Free Beacon or anybody else. Instead, feckless administrators offer pablum and commissions to pacify angry and entitled students.

New York Times.

It has been 20 years since scientists put together the first rough draft of the human genome, the three billion genetic letters of DNA tightly wound inside most of our cells. Today, scientists are still struggling to decipher it.

But a batch of studies published in Science on Thursday has cast a bright light into the dark recesses of the human genome by comparing it with those of 239 other mammals, including narwhals, cheetahs and screaming hairy armadillos.

By tracing this genomic evolution over the past 100 million years, the so-called Zoonomia Project has revealed millions of stretches of human DNA that have changed little since our shrew-like ancestors scurried in the shadows of dinosaurs. These ancient genetic elements most likely carry out essential functions in our bodies today, the project found, and mutations within them can put us at risk of a range of diseases.

Capturing Cop28 chief’s oil firm emissions would take centuries – study (The Guardian)

What Happens When You Put a Fossil Fuel Exec in Charge of Solving Climate Change (TIME)

Cop28 Climate Summit Host Also Runs Abu Dhabi’s State Oil Company (Mother Jones)

UAE oil giant’s two missions: a greener image and ‘accelerated growth’ (Politico)

Nitrogen wars: the Dutch farmers’ revolt that turned a nation upside-down (The Guardian)

Climate Change Is ‘Ultimate Threat to Humanity,’ Biden Says Before Boarding Private Jet To Meet World’s Largest Carbon Emitter

Price paid for offshore power to rise by 50%

India To Increase Coal Production By 60%

Wave-Powered Desalination System Produces 13,000 Gallons of Drinking Water a Day From Each Buoy

How China Dominates the World – And Lies about Climate Commitment

Biden says he still believes Xi Jinping is a dictator (CNN) At least Joe hasn’t lost all touch with reality.

Biden judicial nominee fails to explain law terms when asked by Sen. John Kennedy

Yahoo Poll: Trump Leads Biden for First Time in Months

Morning Vomit: Joe Scarborough Thanks God That ‘Brain Surgeon’ Biden Is President

Watch: Blinken Dies Inside While Biden Blunders Through Major Geopolitical Moment

The BorderLine: Will Biden Going Soft on Venezuelan Dictator Lead to Increase in Immigrants to US?

Leaked NSA Doc Reveals Woke Glossary Promoting Race Theory & Gender Ideology

The Great Train Robbery: Taxpayer Subsidies for Amtrak Should Be Derailed

NewsGuard: Surrogate the Feds Pay to Keep Watch on the Internet and Be a Judge of the Truth

CNN Exclusive: Special counsel using California grand jury in Hunter Biden probe, subpoenas his uncle James Biden (CNN)

Pentagon fails sixth audit in a row (The Hill)

EU Launches Online Platform To Attract Millions of Labor Migrants

UN Condemns France Over Homeschooling Ban

Make St. Nicholas More Moroccan, Says Belgian Mayor

BKA Report: Sharp Uptick in Violent Crime Committed by Migrants Against Germans

Democrats Introduce Bill To Restrict And Track Ammo Sales While Criminalizing “Straw Purchases”

Maryland Teachers Union ‘Milking’ Taxpayers While Test Scores Plummet 

Judge Blocks California Colleges’ Inclusion Rules

Gavin Newsom Gave Millions to Mosques that Cheer the Annihilation of Jews

This Anti-Israel Terrorist Organization Found A Home In A Left-Wing Nonprofit

Oakland A’s Move to Las Vegas Approved  Fleeing California–and California taxes.

Absolute Nonsense: Obama Again Claims To Be First Amendment Absolutist While Supporting Censorship

Anheuser Marketing Chief Out as Bud Light Sales Tank

Mo. AG Seeks Accountability for Soros-Backed Attorney

The Postcolonial Left’s Blindness to Islamic Homophobia  The term ‘useful idiots’ applies.

Republicans now say they want ‘compromise’ on abortion. That’s a lie. (MSNBC)

Where the Republican presidential candidates stand on abortion (NPR)

For a Republican Party struggling with abortion messaging, Haley now appears to have the answer (Politico)

Republicans Are the Party of Asinine Toxic Masculinity (Daily Beast) Don’t hold it in–tell us how you really feel.

‘Same clown car with a different driver’: House GOP goes off the rails

Rudy’s Ukraine caper looks even worse now (Public Notice)

A rare look at the devastation caused by AR-15 shootings (Washington Poop) How about a look at black teen gangbanger handgun shootings, which kill vastly greater numbers of people, most of them black?

Biden DOJ Quietly Hires More Lawyers For Vaccine Injury Lawsuits

The Rise Of Pharma Fascism And The Ruination of the Commons

Top FDA Officials Accepted Jobs With Moderna After Playing Key Roles In The Licensure Of COVID-19 Vaccines  My, what a surprise.

Sen. Rand Paul Says He Wants Federal Prosecution Of Fauci For COVID Coverup

An Illegal Chinese Biolab Containing Infectious Diseases Operated in California. The Feds Ignored It for Months. 

Johnson’s new migrant plan includes 60-day limit in shelters, dedicated entry point for asylum seekers (WGN)

Chicago migrants will have 60-day limit to shelter stays, Mayor Johnson announces (ABC & Chicago)

Mayor Brandon Johnson announces effort to get migrants out of shelters within 60 days (Chicago Tribune)

2 Georgia election workers to seek millions from Giuliani at defamation trial (ABC News)

Georgia prosecutors ask judge to jail Trump RICO co-defendant for witness intimidation.

Colo. Bid to Bar Trump from Ballot Goes to Judge

Trump’s own fraud-trial expert testifies about ‘glaring’ problems in his financial statements — but blames the accountants (Business Insider)

How Trump plays the media on abortion (Popular Information) Not to mention how the Narrative media play the country.

Trump’s new Latino strategy casts him as victim of socialists (Axios) Which he quite plainly is.

Trumpworld Is Already at War Over Staffing a New Trump White House (Daily Beast) ‘Trumpworld’ is a fabulous fantasy land that only the Narrative media can see.

Where efforts to disqualify Trump from 2024 ballot stand (Axios) In a corner, wearing a Dunce Cap.

Christie warns Trump’s ‘vermin’ remark could incite others: ‘He doesn’t care’ (The Hill) He certainly doesn’t care about the opinions of a toad like Christie.

Univision Anchor Out After Trump Interview

2 Judicial Strikes Against Efforts to Keep Trump Off Ballot

Punching Politicians and Trump’s Belligerence (The Bulwark)

Sen. Joe Manchin says Donald Trump would destroy US democracy if he wins a second term as president (Associated Press)

Special counsel investigating Joe Biden’s handling of classified material is not expected to bring charges (CNN)

NY Judge Lifts Limited Gag Order on Trump

Wall Street megadonors warm to Nikki Haley as their anti-Donald Trump Republican (Financial Times) Another Mitt Romney! No, no, another John McCain!

Richard Epstein: Trump Facing Misguided Disqualification Efforts

The American Mind.

As if you had not been told already, hardly a day goes by without a headline reminding us that, after something of an autumnal carnival, habemus—we have a speaker of the House. A theme has emerged in the media coverage. Mike Johnson is a “Christian nationalist,” we are told over and over again, in pieces from Time, from Politico, and from New York Magazine, from Salon, from the Washington Post, and from the New York Times (those are just the outlets you have heard of).

And if, as the Jesus and John Wayne author Kristen Du Mez said on MSNBC this weekend, they mean by that tag just what sociologists have labeled “Christian nationalism,” then they are right, so far as it goes. But throat-clearing clarifications that this is a non-pejorative academic label should feel like fig leaves, surrounded as they always are by the breathless language of danger, fear, and condemnation.

The assessments of Johnson highlight an ambiguity in the discourse about Christian nationalism and in the term itself, which American Christians in particular should bear in mind as the confusion is used to marginalize and manipulate them. The signifier “Christian nationalist” acts as both an allegedly dispassionate sociological descriptor and, usually with “white” attached at the front, a catch-all for the bad people who don’t want to replace the stars and stripes with the vexillologically dysphoric “progress” flag. Plus, of course, some people even call themselves Christian nationalists in defiance of the condemnation.

Watch it.

Most frequent word heard: “Whoa….”

Next time some proglodyte complains about how much the U.S. sucks, remember this.

Read it.

A heat pump you can install in a window. Could be huge….

ZMan lays it out.

The concept of the uniparty has been around a long time, long before political hucksters started using it as catchphrase. The fear of the major parties conspiring with one another to shortcut the will of the people goes back to the 19th century. On the one hand, the two parties should compromise, but on the other hand they should be competing for the approval of the voters. The line between cooperation and conspiracy is not easy to define, but it is assumed to exist.

In the modern age, the uniparty idea has mostly circulated on the Right, because conservatives keep voting harder but always get more of the same. When the Republicans win, they immediately fink on their voters. When they are in the minority, they bend over backwards to help the Democrats. The uniparty in this context is a way of saying that both parties serve the same master. The master can be whatever you like, but it is not the American people.

The truth is the uniparty has been in control since the end of the Second World War when America emerged as a global empire. The “Cold War consensus” was an agreed upon moral framework in which both parties operated. They could tolerate the eccentric oddball here and there for color, but the two parties made sure the people in important position were fully onboard with the consensus. The disputes within the consensus were about how to reach the shared goals.

Quilette.

In September, a new statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky was erected in the Moscow suburbs outside of the headquarters of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki (SVR). Dzerzhinsky was the Polish creator of one of the world’s great repressive political machines. In 1917, he had been instructed to create the SVR’s forerunner, known then as the Cheka, by Lenin himself, who much admired the toughness of the man who became known as Iron Felix. The organisation would be called many names—the GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MGB, KGB—and it is now split into the SVR and the domestic Federal Security Service or Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (FSB).

Iron Felix was Heinrich Himmler plus competence.