THERE SHOULD BE $100,000 STATUTORY DAMAGES FOR A BOGUS DMCA TAKEDOWN NOTICE: Roca Labs Issues Bogus DMCA Takedown Notices To Google To Try To Hide PissedConsumer Reviews. I can’t imagine why anyone would do business with a company that acted this way, and I certainly wouldn’t trust any of its products.

PLENTY OF ROOM AT THE TOP: FBI’s most wanted cybercriminal used his cat’s name as a password.

LORD OF THE DRONES: DJI’s New Inspire 1 Quadcopter Lifts Its Arms to Shoot Stunning 4K Video.

BUSTED: Nancy Pelosi says she doesn’t know who Jonathan Gruber is. She touted his work in 2009.

ASHE SCHOW: A Modest Proposal For Closing The Gender Wage Gap. “Every reputable study suggests that working age women earn less than men mostly due to the choices women make in their careers. The scientists know this, the economists know this — even the White House knows this. And so I humbly present my own proposal for closing the gender wage gap, which I hope will not only solve the problem but also satisfy voices on all sides of the argument. As a society, we must begin telling women what subjects they can major in, what colleges they can attend, and what jobs they can take.”

This is brilliant. Of course, some individuals’ choices may be frustrated, but it’s for the greater good.

GOVERNMENT IS JUST A WORD FOR THINGS WE SCREW OFF ON TOGETHER: Inspector: No sign of investigation in 1,111 New Orleans sex crime-related calls.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Gaia As The Opiate Of The Masses. “Speaking of God, here are the minutes of an academic meeting which concludes that religion has to be revived in order to justify the fight against Global Warming. . . . Fasting, abstinence, penitence, chastity, self-denial, meditation are about to make a comeback. Not in the name of Christ, or Moses or the Buddha it’s true — but for Gaia at least.”

Well, to be fair, David Brin had this idea a long time ago.

WHEN TRUST IS ABUSED, IT DISAPPEARS: Roger Simon: “Climate Change” In The Land Of Gruber/Obama.

BUSTED: “Is that an admission from Linda Greenhouse that Bush v. Gore wasn’t really all that bad? Actually, yes!” Plus: “I love the way Greenhouse signals to Roberts what he needs to do to win the respect of the legal elite, not that he can ever really have it. He can have a little, and, you know, sometimes a little love, with true love withheld, is just what keeps a love-seeker pursuing love.”

BUSTED:

Oof, @sarahkliff – That’s gotta hurt RT @ArikSharon: Voxplaining in action. #GruberGate pic.twitter.com/q39chpMpr3

— Cameron Gray (@Cameron_Gray) November 13, 2014

PRIVATE CITIZENS, doing the job investigative reporters won’t do.

You know, you could write a whole book on this phenomenon.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 553.

KIM KARDASHIAN: Double-Reverse Feminist Role Model?

AMERICA AFTER THE MIDTERMS: Blue Twilight and Red Dawn?

This election in particular, in which Republicans did exceptionally well at the state level suggests that while the Democratic Party may well innovate and adjust, the core tenets of the blue model as a basic governing philosophy are in much deeper trouble than many of the operatives and thinkers of the Democratic Party are prepared to admit.

The survival of Sam Brownback in Kansas and Scott Walker in Wisconsin, and the equally striking election of Tom Tiflis in North Carolina tell us that in some states at least relatively radical “Red Dawn” governance, even when it runs into serious policy and political trouble, doesn’t necessarily translate into political defeat. At the same time, the stunning losses of Democratic gubernatorial candidates in states like Massachusetts, Illinois and Maryland tells us that blue model governance as usual is no longer good enough to keep voters loyal.

Election results in New York underline this point. In one of the bluest states in the country, Republicans gained control of the state Senate, a clear message that even New Yorkers don’t want to give leftie Democrats the keys to the car. New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio, a self-avowed ‘progressive’ who rejects what he considers the soulless centrism of Democrats like (re-elected) Andrew Cuomo is not the wave of the future in New York State politics.

The United States overall remains in its unhappy equilibrium. Voters like and even pine for the stability and general prosperity of the far away times when the blue model worked. But they are increasingly losing confidence that it still works, and the economic decline of states like Illinois, the decline of the middle class in states like New York and California, and the inability of blue model economies to generate the revenue that blue model government requires continue to erode voter faith.

And with good reason.

SPENGLER: Why China Won’t Fall Apart.

FIGHTING THE POWER: Angry Town Residents Shut Down Nanny Statists in Meeting on Tobacco Products Ban. In Massachusetts, no less.

TRIGGER WARNING: This post disparages the proliferation of trigger warnings.

AT AMAZON, fresh deals on Bestselling Products, updated every hour.

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HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Since #BringBackOurGirls, Boko Haram grows stronger. Can we get Jen Psaki or somebody to lecture them about the spirit of the hashtag?

PROBLEMS FOR THE COMET PROBE: “The probe left Rosetta with 60-plus hours of battery life, and will need at some point to charge up with its solar panels. But early reports indicate that in its present position, the robot is receiving only one-and-a-half hours of sunlight during every 12-hour rotation of the comet. This will not be enough to sustain operations. As a consequence, controllers here are discussing using one of Philae’s deployable instruments to try to launch the probe upwards and away to a better location. But this would be a last-resort option.”

WAR ON CHRISTMAS: Backlash over Montgomery decision to strip Christmas from school calendar.

John Gibson, call your office!

DON SURBER: The first 2016 Electoral College Map looks bad for Democrats.

I am not saying that the 31 states where Republicans control the legislature will definitely go Republican in the 2016 presidential race. But if they do, that’s 314 Electoral College votes. You need only 270 to win. . . . The carnage this year should demoralize Democrats, particularly Hillary Clinton, who has the misfortune of being the Democratic front runner for 2016. George McGovern and Fritz Mondale feel her pain.

Hillary Clinton was about as effective as Pat Nixon on the campaign trail. Her candidates lost 12 of the 13 tight Senate races she campaigned in. Even the Jacksonville Jaguars have a better winning record this year. She’s old and it shows. Her ideas have atrophied. She has been a fixture in Washington for 22, always causing some controversy, always blaming others, always cackling. One reason Democratic Party bosses backed her opponent in the 2008 nomination process was that he was No Drama Obama.

She’s 67 and has had only one executive position in her live. And she blew that gig in Benghazi.

Of course, she heads a bench of balsa wood. Behind her is “young Hillary” — Elizabeth Warren, 65. Then there is the “conservative Democrat,” Martin O’Malley, 51, governor of Maryland. He doesn’t want the government’s boot on your throat; he wants to put its ballet slipper there. He pushed for cheap college tuition for illegal aliens. Democrats are about to learn that “immigration reform” is as big a loser as gun control and global warming.

Andrew Cuomo, 56, may be the most intriguing in the Democratic bunch. He cut a deal with Republicans to get re-elected in exchange for Republicans taking control of the state Senate. After Obama, Democrats may go for a guy who cuts deals, no matter how far below the table they go. Oh and you political virgins out there need to understand, Republicans got the better end of the deal.

But like his father before him, Cuomo doesn’t need the presidency. He has all he needs in Albany.

Besides, who needs the noise?

The bottom line is no matter who the Democrats nominate, he or she faces an Electoral College map that is stacked against Democrats. The Solid South now stretches to Wisconsin.

Read the whole thing. But don’t get cocky, kid.

TOM STEYER SPENT $74 MILLION AND WHAT DID HE GET? A bunch of Democrats rushing to vote for the Keystone XL pipeline in the hopes of saving Mary Landrieu. “After their midterm losses, there is little political fallout for Senate Democrats to worry about.”

Plus, this amusing vignette:

Before her remarks, Landrieu was spotted riding the escalator alone up from the Senate trains that carry lawmakers between their offices and the Capitol, toward a row of elevators. She was stone-faced and declined to answer questions from reporters. Once she reached the top level and stepped off, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of his party’s top campaign strategists, walked over.

Smiling, he asked Landrieu to step aside for a private conversation. She shook her head and moved briskly toward the elevator. As she did, she pointed to her phone, saying she had a call. Schumer paused for a moment as she moved away. His smile dropped, and he turned to follow her. “Mary, Mary,” he said, a few steps behind, asking her to speak with him. When she kept moving and ducked into an elevator, he hustled and jumped in to join her as the doors closed.

Sorry, Chuck. She’s just not that into you.

WHEN SEX-BAITING BACKFIRES: “Democrats worked hard to turn out women, but the strategy helped motivate Republican women outraged about the emphasis on reproductive rights and so-called ‘women’s issues.’ Women gave Democrats a 5 percentage point edge Tuesday, not enough to offset Republicans’ 14 point advantage among men.”

Note how even this article downplays the Democrats’ dreadful gender gap with men. The trouble with a campaign that demonizes an entire gender is that eventually, that gender notices.