Read it.

Protesting farmers were met by riot police with fire hoses just metres from the European Parliament on Thursday, as they tried to grab the attention of the European Council by expressing their collective outrage at EU green policies threatening their livelihood.

In an unusually rowdy protest, even by Brussels standards, tyre fires and tractor blockades greeted European leaders as a transnational coalition of farming groups took to the streets. They are angered by EU green policies—including decrees forcing active farmland to go fallow, restricting the use of fertiliser, and limiting permitted amount of livestock—as well as national edicts such as reduced subsidies on diesel fuel—that are direct results of the EU’s Net Zero commitments.

In remarks to The European Conservative, French MEP Thierry Mariani (Rassemblement National-ID) blamed the uproar on the wishes of EU elites to pursue free trade deals while suffocating native European industry with “Soviet-style administration of agriculture,” as well as relentlessly pursuing Ukrainian integration into EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP).

The peasants are still revolting.

Washington Times.

Under pressure from Congress, the Pentagon on Wednesday released an updated and expanded list of nearly 50 Chinese military companies currently operating in the United States. The list includes several key weapons makers such as the Aviation Industry Corp. of China Ltd. and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. Ltd.

Two state-run nuclear companies on the list — the China National Nuclear Corp. and China General Nuclear Power Group — are key players in China‘s rapid nuclear weapons buildup and have been sanctioned by the Treasury Department in the past for suspected diversion of civilian nuclear technology to the Chinese military.

The 46 companies, including 17 subsidiaries is a marked increase since the first list was published in 2021. That list included 34 companies and 13 subsidiary companies. Thirteen companies were added to the list in 2022.

Read it.

There are elections in Hong Kong, but to get on the ballot you have to be nominated by a committee controlled by Beijing government.

Elections for the Harvard Board of Overseers—one of Harvard’s two governing bodies—are almost as well-controlled. A Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) nominating committee curates a slate of candidates, from which alumni make their selections.

But an alternative route to get on the Harvard ballot exists, at least in theory. So-called “petition” candidates have always been rare—but after several climate activists were elected in 2020, the rules were changed to make it even harder. Among other things, the number of petitions to get on the ballot was raised by a factor of fifteen, to more than three thousand.

Washington Free Beacon.

The radical left-wing lawmakers who comprise “The Squad” have consistently behaved in a manner that can only be described as shameful and un-American. We honestly didn’t think it was possible for them to disgrace themselves any further, but the events of this past week proved us wrong.

Shockingly enough, none of these recent developments involved Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), the recently censured congresswoman who is best known for her anti-Semitic outbursts. Here’s a look at what Tlaib’s fellow Squad members have been up to lately.

Newt Gingrich.

Scott Rasmussen has done America an enormous service. He and his team have identified the driving forces behind the destructive radicalism which is pushing us into a cultural civil war.

While doing their two weekly national surveys, Rasmussen and his team noticed an anomaly. Out of every 1,000 or so respondents, there would always be three or four who were far more radical than everyone else. After several months of finding these unusual responses, Rasmussen realized they all shared three characteristics.

The radical responses came from people who had graduate degrees (not just graduate studies), family incomes above $150,000 a year, and lived in large cities (more than 10,000 people per zip code).

L. A. Times

A California law requiring people to submit to a background check every time they want to purchase ammunition is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled in a decision made public Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez found state laws prohibiting California buyers from purchasing and importing ammunition from out-of-state sellers likewise violate federal law.

Benitez barred the state from enforcing the laws moving forward and denied a request from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office to put his decision on hold while the state appeals to a higher court.

Read it.

Updated COVID-19 vaccines may cause heart inflammation and severe allergic shock, according to a new study from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Researchers with the FDA, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and companies like CVS looked at health care databases to try to figure out if there were signs the Moderna and Pfizer bivalent COVID-19 vaccines might be linked to any health issues.

They found several safety signals. One signal was for myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, and a related condition called pericarditis following Pfizer vaccination in adults aged 18 to 35. Another was for anaphylaxis, or severe allergic shock, following Moderna and Pfizer vaccination in people aged 18 to 64.

Read it.

On Wednesday, Tara Reade, the alleged sexual abuse victim of Joe Biden, took legal action against the Department of Justice, filing a tort complaint through her London-based attorney, Jonathan Levy.

Read it.

Weeks after the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay over a plagiarism scandal, the university’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, has been accused of doing the same.

According to a Monday complaint filed with the university, as well as an analysis by the Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium, large portions of Charleston’s work very clearly appears to have been lifted from others without so much as quotation marks. She even took credit for her own husband’s work, according to the report.

Read it.

Citing a wrongheaded “GPA fixation,” Western Oregon University leaders have announced plans to abolish D- and F grades for students.

They will replace them with “no credit” in an effort to support student success and encourage struggling undergrads to continue their education despite obstacles, they said.

Newsbusters.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, CBS and NBC have ignored their announcement of a Justice Department probe into far-left Congresswoman and Squad member Cori Bush (D-MO) on their flagship morning and evening newscasts. The probe, which reportedly concerns using campaign funds to pay her now-husband to be her bodyguard, is a scandal that could be used against her fellow Democrats, so CBS and NBC made sure to bury it.

The only segment came on Wednesday’s Good Morning America with a very short, 58-second report on the ABC News program.

If she had been a Republican, of course….

The Foundry.

A Missouri school district intends to double its percentage of minority teachers even as the state’s attorney general has warned that private companies that racially discriminate in hiring face legal action.

Webster Groves School District’s teaching and administrative staff should match the racial demographics of its student body, according to the Missouri school system’s strategic plan. The public school district implemented its plan this winter and aims to accomplish listed goals within three years.

One objective of Webster Groves, a school system in the suburbs of St. Louis, is to “attract, support, and retain exceptionally talented staff who at minimum reflect the diversity of our student population.”

In the 2023-2024 school year, 11% of teachers and administrators for Webster Groves are nonwhite, an increase of 4 percentage points from 7% nonwhite in the 2017-2018 school year.

The school district would have to increase the percentage of nonwhite teachers to 22.2% to match the student body, according to documents posted online for the Dec. 13 meeting of the Webster Groves school board.