THEY HAVE LEARNED NOTHING, AND FORGOTTEN NOTHING:  “More than three weeks after Democrats got stomped at every level in the 2016 elections, Barack Obama still bitterly clings to Fox News as the reason for his undoing,” Ed Morrissey writes at Hot Air. “In an interview with Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Obama said that media fragmentation has undermined national consensus. Having Fox News playing ‘in every bar and restaurant’ made it more difficult for Democrats to connect to voters.” I think I can count the number of bars or restaurants where Fox News was playing on only of Homer Simpson’s hands, though I have been in plenty of bars, restaurants, banks, hospital waiting rooms, airport departure lounges and other public areas where the ubiquity of CNN feels very much like Orwell’s inescapable, impossible to turn off two-way telescreen:

It’s funny — Barack Obama managed to win two national elections in a world where Fox News dominated cable ratings, and yet he’s never stopped whining about them. He began his presidency with an ill-considered war on Fox, and he’s wrapping it up the same way. Fox may never get this level of promotion again, so it’s no wonder they’re lapping it up as much as possible now.

Speaking of presidential promotion, Wenner’s doing as much as he can while he has the time, too. He doesn’t bother to remind Obama of any of these inconvenient facts or challenge Obama’s whining, but instead rolls over for a very strange bellyrub while asking for government subsidies.

Which is also how newspapers began Obama’s administration as well. Like their lame duck boss, the DNC-MSM marches in place, ending the last eight years exactly how they began.

DOWNLOAD FOR LATER: Netflix finally gives us the feature we’ve been waiting for.

FLASHBACK: Hillary Clinton and the Emoluments Clause.

Related: Hillary Clinton’s Emoluments Problem.

Though I guess Trump has mooted his own issue

AT AMAZON, big savings in Heating, Cooling, and Air Quality.

Plus, save on bestsellers in Jewelry

CHANGE: Philip Morris CEO looks towards phasing out cigarettes.

RUSSIAN AIRCRAFT MAY USE IRANIAN AIRBASE TO ATTACK SYRIA: The base would be used to launch airstrikes. The article notes that Russia used the base in August.

Russia is considering using Iran’s Hamadan airbase to launch airstrikes on insurgents in Syria if its aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, leaves Syria’s coastline on the Mediterranean for a new mission, Russian and Iranian officials said.

“The necessity to use the airfield of the airbase in Hamadan could emerge if Admiral Kuznetsov carries out another operation and [Russia] will not be able to use it for airstrikes against terrorists in Syria,” Viktor Ozerov on Saturday told RIA Novosti,, Russia’s state-operated international news agency.

Use of the base is a touchy subject for Iranians.

Iran allowed Russia to operate from the base in mid-August. The jets returned to Russia after completing their anti-terror mission one week later.

Iran became uneasy about the situation because the Iranian constitution prohibits the presence of any foreign forces on Iranian soil.

The New York Times reported Iran thought Russia was too public about the privilege.

“I’d like to emphasize that Iran never gave to Russia full control over the Noje base in Hamadan. This airbase belongs to Iran and all activities at the base are controlled by Tehran,” Sheikholeslam said.

OUCH:

HOW’S THAT WAR ON FOX NEWS GOIN’ FOR YA, CHAMP? President Obama laments influence of Fox News.

Like the guy says, has anyone in the press asked Obama the last time he was in a bar with Fox News on?

THE DEVIL YOU SAY: It’s Not Scotch, but Tasmanian Whisky Is Flying off the Shelves.

Ten years ago there were only three distillers in Tasmania. Now there are 22, and with sales growing by more than 50 percent in the two years to June 2015, that number is expected to double over the next five years. Still, total revenue from the industry reached just A$20 million last year, a drop in the whisky world’s ocean. Scotch whisky, by comparison, generates 3.95 billion pounds ($4.9 billion) a year, accounting for about a quarter of U.K. food and drink exports.

“The only negative is volume — we can’t keep up with demand,” State Premier Will Hodgman said in an interview in Tasmania’s capital Hobart. “But we want to preserve the integrity of the brand. The bar has been set high and if they want to be competitive, the new entrants will need to prove to be equally high grade.”

Quality whisky/whiskey production is becoming democratized and recognized around the world, just like fine wine production did outside of Europe in the 1970s. There’s never been a better time to be a drinker.

THE DEEP SEVENS COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT: Gigantic underground oceans could be full of ‘aliens.’

I’M GUESSING IT’S DECLINING LEVELS OF FITNESS: Stroke Rates Rising in Younger People. “Stroke rates have been declining in older people over the past 20 years — but have sharply increased in those under 55. . . . Compared with the 1995-99 period, the rate of stroke in 2010-14 increased by 147 percent in people 35 to 39, by 101 percent in people 40 to 44, by 68 percent in those 45 to 49, and by 23 percent in the 50 to 54 group.”

SECURITY BREACH: Arrested German spy was a onetime gay porn actor — and a secret Islamist.

AT AMAZON, Cyber Monday Deals Week Savings in Electronics

Plus, save on bestsellers in Automotive.

PHILADELPHIA CITY ATTORNEY NAMED IN ANTI-TRUMP VANDALISM: “If the image of an upper-middle class city attorney clad in a blazer and sipping wine while vandalizing an upscale grocery store with an anti-Trump message strikes you as perhaps the most bourgeois sight imaginable, that’s because it is.”

I THINK THERE ARE ARGUMENTS HE’D BE RECEPTIVE TO: Conservative Criminal Justice Groups Hope They Can Sway a Skeptical Trump Administration. The argument should revolve around how we’re not imprisoning truly dangerous criminals long enough, while we’re wasting a lot of time and energy on people who aren’t really a threat.

CYBERSECURITY: 1 million Google accounts compromised by Android malware called Gooligan.

Gooligan, as researchers from security firm Check Point Software Technologies have dubbed the malware, has been found in at least 86 apps available in third-party marketplaces. Once installed, it uses a process known as rooting to gain highly privileged system access to devices running version 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, and KitKat) and version 5 (Lollipop) of Google’s Android operating system. Together, the vulnerable versions account for about 74 percent of users.

The rooted devices then download and install software that steals the authentication tokens that allow the phones to access the owner’s Google-related accounts without having to enter a password. The tokens work for a variety of Google properties, including Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Drive, and G Suite.

You’re taking your chances if you download Android apps from anywhere other than the Google Play store.

LEVI’S: No Firearms in Our Stores. Thanks.

And another proud American institution falls prey to progressivism.

1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.#lefties

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) November 10, 2015

I’M SO OLD, I REMEMBER THEN LEFT CONDEMNED WITCH HUNTS INSTEAD OF GINNING THEM UP FOR KICKS AND GRINS: ‘Quite the scoop’! Buzzfeed HAMMERED for ‘political witch hunt’ of HGTV ‘Fixer Upper’ couple Chip & Joanna Gaines.

When does BuzzFeed land?

UPDATE: “Help me out here [Ben Smith of BuzzFeed], I can’t find the article where you guys did this to the cast of ‘All-American Muslim.'”

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL, BUT MOSTLY JUST CRUEL: Canadian cops to punish drunk drivers with Nickelback tunes.

The Canadian town of Kensington has hit upon a genius plan to detract its residents from drinking and driving this holiday season.

Not only will the cops charge you, they’ll also blast Nickelback while they’re haul you to jail.
The Kensington Police Service laid down the law in a Facebook post over the weekend for those “dumb enough to feel they can drink and drive.”

“When we catch you and we will catch you,” the department added, “on top of a hefty fine, a criminal charge and a years driving suspension we will also provide you with a bonus gift of playing the offices copy of Nickelback in the cruiser on the way to jail.”

Canadians always seemed so nice.

JIM GERAGHTY: DO YOU RECALL THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S “STRAY VOLTAGE” THEORY?

The gist was, “the president purposefully overstates his case knowing that it will create controversy… Controversy sparks attention, attention provokes conversation, and conversation embeds previously unknown or marginalized ideas in the public consciousness.” Part of it was a cynical calculation to let an argument about a presidential statement ensure a topic stayed front and center in the public’s mind; there’s also the side effect of ensuring that a brouhaha about a presidential statement overshadowed actual policy decisions – decisions that may be more consequential, but are less dramatic and interesting to the news media.

Almost like, say, a president-elect declaring he wants to strip away the citizenship of those burning the flag.

If the incoming Trump administration really is using a variation of the “stray voltage” approach, and Democrats really have an uncontrollable impulse to focus on the controversial statement du jour, the Trump administration could end up being stunningly effective in policymaking. A lot of seemingly dry and boring regulations can be repealed, executive orders withdrawn, rewritten and issued, legislation passed by GOP majorities in Congress and signed, all while the political world froths at the mouth about the president’s latest Tweet or denunciation of the media, or theater performers, or anything else that comes to mind.

You can enact sweeping, dramatic changes to Americans’ lives under the radar. As our friends at the Weekly Standard noted, the charter school movement grew enormously over the past 25 years, in large part because it wasn’t a big, Washington-focused political battle. Today, “43 states have charter-school laws, and approximately 3 million kids attend almost 7,000 charters across the country.” This happened without any giant federal legislation or heated governmental clashes in the national spotlight.

Could this really happen? Could the next four (eight?) years really turn out to be a golden era for conservative policy?

Let’s not get too far ahead ourselves. I’m old enough to remember the wild – and wildly naïve – optimism of the left right around this time in November of 2008.

QED:

JOANNE JACOBS: Teaching ‘1984’ in 2016. Really, kids, it’s not an instruction manual!

HOW HIGH CAN YOU GET? Now You Can Play Classic Arcade Games Directly In Facebook Messenger.

Messenger still creeps me out.

BE STILL, MY BEATING HEART: Here’s Your First Look at the 2018 Ford Fiesta.

PALOMINO! ‘It’s About the Character of America’: Pelosi Keeps Leadership Post with Two-Thirds Support.

I wonder if any of Nancy’s crash test dummies will be interviewed for their take on her “leadership?”

FEWER FIGHTER PILOT FLIGHT HOURS: See Stephen Green’s post about the USAF fighter squadron shortage and his comment about decreasing flight hours (2:12 pm). Then read Jim Dunnigan’s discussion of this issue, which was published this morning on StrategyPage. His post includes a discussion about flight hours in World War 2.