SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “You see the hash Obama made of Syria and suddenly you understand how the Left could lose to Trump.”

PROVING THE UTTER VACUITY OF THIS DEMOCRAT CATCHPHRASE: Whoopi Goldberg Says That Kellyanne Conway Is ‘Fake News.’

How many winning presidential campaigns have you managed, Whoopi?

UPDATE (Ed): I guess Whoopi thinks that Conway is as fake as the moon landing!

RED LINES: Facing Reprisals, Aleppo Civilians Plea for International Help.

Antigovernment activists and Aleppo residents said at least 80 people have been killed since Monday, most of them either caught in the regime’s advance or discovered hiding in their homes. Regime firing squads killed most of them, they said.

“The Assad militias are maybe 300 meters away, no place now to go, it’s the last place,” Abdulkafi al-Hamdo, a teacher, said in a live video feed early Tuesday morning.

“I hope that you can do something for Aleppo people, for my daughter, for the other children. I hope you can do something to stop the expected massacres,” he said.

The United Nations called again Tuesday for an end to the fighting and the establishment of humanitarian corridors to allow people to flee safely. “Thousands with no part in the violence have literally nowhere safe to run,” the International Committee of the Red Cross also said.

Activist group Aleppo24, which has a network of contacts in the city, said regime forces had burned more than 15 women and children alive. Another group, the Halab News Network, alleged that regime forces were killing all wounded patients left in field hospitals.

As I’ve been writing for a year or two now, “If you think the Syrian Civil War is bad, just wait for the reprisals.”

And here they come.

Also in today’s WSJ is this tangentially related report by Gerald Seib:

If you happened to be listening carefully, Donald Trump told us something important a few days ago about the profoundly different approach he intends to take toward the Middle East and the threat of Islamic extremism.

The president-elect’s message was largely overlooked because it came in the middle of a typically raucous and rambling “thank you” rally in Cincinnati. News reports focused on his announcement that he would nominate as secretary of defense Gen. James Mattis—“Mad Dog Mattis” as he seems destined to be called by his new boss.

In a separate passage, one in which Mr. Trump clearly was following a script rather than freelancing, he said: “We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments, folks.”

After wasting “$6 trillion” in Middle East fights, he said, “our goal is stability not chaos.”

He added: “We will partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism…In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interest wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding and goodwill.”

“Peace, understanding and goodwill” are all likely to run face first into Middle Eastern realities, but the rest has the potential for a healthy dose of realpolitik.

PARTY OF OLD, WHITE PEOPLE: PPP Poll on Democrats’ 2020 preferences: “Joe Biden leads the way for Democrats with 31% to 24% for Bernie Sanders, and 16% for Elizabeth Warren. They’re the only folks we tested with meaningful support for the nomination at this point.”

GOOD LORD: New York should seize Trump Tower.

Maybe it’s a mistake to read too much into an opinion piece published by the Washington Post, but they’ve gone full Trump Derangement Syndrome today, between that Catherine Rampell suggestion above, and Eugene Robinson’s right here: “Trump is assembling an anti-government. Did Russia help get him here?”

The manic frothing going on up and down the BosWash Corridor has got to be unhealthy.

ROLL CALL: How Tomi Lahren Could Get Elected to Congress.

With millions of video views and hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers, young Tomi Lahren is leaving her mark on the political world from her new media perch on the right. Could Congress be next?

Lahren is no stranger to Republicans, conservatives, and Donald Trump supporters. Her “Final Thoughts” segment chastising San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for protesting racial injustice by sitting during the national anthem has been viewed more than 66 million times on Facebook.

The confrontational 24-year old was introduced to the rest of the country (and the rest of the ideological spectrum) recently with a profile in The New York Times, “Young, Vocal and the Right’s Rising Media Star,” and a 26-minute sparring match with Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central.

If she wants it, Lahren would have a plausible path to Congress.

She is a native of Rapid City, South Dakota. And less than a week after winning re-election last month, GOP Rep. Kristi Noem of South Dakota announced she would leave her at-large district at the end of her term to run for governor in 2018.

With Trump’s 62 percent to 32 percent victory over Hillary Clinton in the Mount Rushmore State and Noem’s 64 percent to 36 percent re-election victory, the battle for the congresswoman’s seat will essentially take place in the Republican primary.

Lahren has the opportunity to overwhelm the field.

Well, stay tuned.

THIS DEAL KEEPS GETTING WORSE ALL THE TIME: Iran to build nuclear marine propulsion after U.S. ‘violation’ of deal.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani ordered on Tuesday the head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to start planning the development of nuclear marine propulsion in reaction to what he called the United States’ violation of the nuclear deal.

Such propulsion would to be in marine transportation,” he said in a letter published on state news agency IRNA.

Uh-huh.

WESLEY PRUDEN: Trying to overturn a free and fair election.

Desperation pursues despair, and the Democrats are stumbling from inanity to insanity in search of a way to block Donald Trump’s path to the White House. Hilary Clinton’s remnant of a campaign has endorsed an attempt by a handful of members of the Electoral College — 9 Democrats and a rogue Republican — to get the “intelligence briefing” they think might derail next Monday’s scheduled day for the members of the Electoral College to vote for president, 306 of whom are honor bound to vote for the Donald. That’s 36 votes more than he needs.

“The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very grave issues involving our national security,” John Podesta said Monday. “Electors have a solemn responsibility under the Constitution and we support their efforts to have their questions addressed.

“Each day our campaign decried the interference of Russia in our campaign and its evident goal of hurting our campaign to aid Donald Trump. Despite our protestations this matter did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in our campaign. We now know that the CIA has determined Russia’s interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump. This should distress every American.”

What should distress every American is the way the left, the liberals, the progressives and their handmaidens in the press have discarded reasonable conversation to try out every absurd alarm, one after the other, to see whether one could stick, to undermine and undercut the results of what everyone agrees was a free and fair election on Nov. 8. None has worked. More than a month later, the republic stands.

As I noted earlier this hour, if Moscow did attempt to hijack the recent election, they haven’t been the only beneficiaries of the resulting chaos. The Democrats don’t seem to be above a little subversion themselves.

A DEMOCRAT’S LAMENT: America is held hostage by flyover states.

The predominant narrative coming out of the 2016 Presidential post-election analysis is: The flyover states have spoken.

A flyover state is the huge region between the coasts. As opposed to the eastern seaboard, northern post-industrial states and Pacific Ocean states. They’re overwhelmingly Republican, stanchly conservative, regressive right wing, evangelical Christian and working class, well, the loudest, most ill-informed of them are. The term wasn’t commonly used in a political manner until recently with the emergence of the Tea-Party and the election of Obama.

A visit to Wichita, Kansas isn’t on the bucket list of many Americans. Whereas most travelers fly over Fayetteville, Arkansas and Springfield, Missouri. They’re not destination spots. The flyover state gripe has nothing to do with the tourist industry of Oklahoma or Nebraska or Iowa. This is about their perceived feelings of abandonment and disrespect from their government.

You know, if the federal government had less power, they couldn’t hold you “hostage” by winning elections. But you wanted the federal government to have a lot of power, so you could really lord it over those rubes in flyover country.

Well:

NEW YORK MAG’S DAVID WALLACE-WELLS: Trump May Have America, But the City Is Still Ours.

The city was always an asylum. On television on Election Night, the world they used was bubble. But what a bubble.

New Yorkers woke up on November 8 in what seems now like a fairy-tale fog, convinced, as ever, that the future belonged to us. By midnight, the world looked very different, the country very far away (and the future, too). Eighty percent of us had voted against the man who won, and 80 percent, it seemed, were already hatching plans to leave — for Canada or Berlin or anywhere else we imagined we could live safely among the like-minded. That was when the text messages began coming in from old friends in Wisconsin and Texas and North Carolina and Missouri. They were watching the same returns we were, in the same apocalyptic panic, and all making desperate plans to come to New York. For them, the city was still the same fairy tale.

And for us, those 80 percent in denial and despair, the city itself was a consolation. The human traffic on the streets that next morning was funereal, but it did proceed, commuters stuffed shoulder-­to-shoulder on subway cars, crying. More amazing, here: They were looking each other in the eye as they bawled. There were hugs among strangers, and many more bleary-eyed nods, on streets that seemed dusted with ash. It was a bubble, of course, but after the election, the city unbubbled us too — popped us out of our blister packs of despair.

Man, you went full Pauline Kael. You never go full Pauline Kael.

LEE SMITH: What Game Is Russia Playing?

As far as the first question, it’s hardly a stretch of the imagination to believe that Moscow is behind the hack. Russia has a long history of interfering in the political processes of foreign countries, especially throughout Europe where it has reportedly supported various parties, left and right, and has funded France’s National Front and perhaps other parties as well. The American intelligence community has believed for some time now that Moscow was responsible for the DNC hacks but, as the Post reports, was “cautious for months in characterizing Russia’s motivations, reflecting the United States’ long-standing struggle to collect reliable intelligence on President Vladimir Putin and those closest to him.”

So what changed? Or, to move to the second issue, how is it that, according to the Post and the Times, the intelligence community now believes Russia was trying to get Trump elected? The problem with the assessment is not just in collecting intelligence on targets like Putin but is rather about the nature of information operations. These are blunt instruments. Competent intelligence services know not to task information operations with too much detail because they take on a life of their own regardless of what their authors intended. For instance, if the purpose of leaking Clinton’s emails was to embarrass her and throw the presidency to Trump, the follow-on effect has served the opposite purpose.

The point seems to be to discredit the entire American political process, and then reap the benefits of the ensuing chaos.

It would also seem that Moscow is not the only beneficiary.

SCOTT SHACKFORD: Let’s Say Russia Did Hack the Dems. What Would Be a Responsible Reaction?

From the perspective of a Gary Johnson voter who regularly feels disenfranchised from the American electoral process and probably would stop voting entirely were it not for third parties and ballot initiatives, here’s what the responses to the latest allegations that the Russian government hacked and leaked information from the Democratic Party to the press looks like:

Democratic partisans: “Having embarrassing emails and data about our inner workings released to the public is the equivalent of Watergate and Pearl Harbor combined. Why aren’t more people outraged?”

Republican partisans: “If the Russians actually were involved, this is proof how weak a President Barack Obama was on the international stage. If only he had started a few more wars and droned a few more weddings!”

Nick Gillespie blogged this morning about how we needed more transparency from our own government and more proof that the Russian government was actually involved before we were to simply accept anonymous sources with unknown agendas.

But, as a thought exercise, let’s accept it as truth. Let’s say that the Russian government, under direct orders from President Vladimir Putin, hacked and released this inside info with the intent of influencing our election. What is the “right” way to examine what happened? Perhaps those of us with no political dogs in this hunt can give some advice.

Mostly I know that if the parties were reversed this wouldn’t even be an issue, except for Jon Stewart mocking the GOP for bad security.

I DON’T SEE ACCEPTANCE THERE.  I’M NOT OKAY WITH THIS: The 5 Stages Of Losing An Election To Donald Trump.

WELL, THINK ABOUT IT; THEY’VE TAKEN OVER THE MEDIA FOR A REASON: Tucker Carlson: So… Dems Don’t Want Voters To Have Information About Candidates?

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP: Obama Admin Staking Iran Deal Legacy on Doomed Bid to Sell Tehran Aircraft.  At what point do we call this treason?

MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST GET BABY STARS THEIR OWN CELL PHONES? Searching for Baby Planets in a Star’s Dusty Rings

WHICH IS GOOD, BECAUSE CELLS WALKING AROUND ASKING “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” WOULD CAUSE SERIOUS PROBLEMS: How Cells Remember Who They Are.

IF YOU’D BEEN AROUND AS LONG AS THE EARTH… Hearing Earth’s Creaks.

PROBLEMS OF GUN FREE ZONES: My day was going great until I was shot twice.

SERIOUSLY, ENGLISH WITHOUT SHAKESPEARE? THAT’S HERESY: Cry Havoc! 

SHUT UP AND SHELVE BOOKS: Why quiet-loving librarians can’t shut up about politics.

NO, RUSSIA DIDN’T HAND THE ELECTION TO TRUMP; BUT RUSSIA IS STILL A PROBLEM: Lies, damn lies, and assessment language.

DIDN’T TOLKIEN WRITE AN ENTIRE TRILOGY ON RESISTING THE LURE OF POWER? Kellyane Conway has it right on mothers’ tough choices.

FAUXCAHONTAS SCALPS WRONG PALEFACE:

Senator Elizabeth Warren, furious about President-elect Donald J. Trump’s appointments of finance industry insiders, took to Facebook a little over a week ago to fire off a message to her nearly 2.5 million followers.

She took aim at an individual she described as a “hedge fund billionaire” who is “thrilled by Donald Trump’s economic team of Wall Street insiders.”

The hedge fund manager she condemned was Whitney Tilson, who runs Kase Capital. Ms. Warren — the fiery Massachusetts Democrat who is known for her stern mistrust of Wall Street — called him out by saying, “Tilson knows that, despite all the stunts and rhetoric, Donald Trump isn’t going to change the economic system.” Then she added, “The next four years are going to be a bonanza for the Whitney Tilsons of the world.”

There’s one rather glaring problem with Ms. Warren’s attack: Mr. Tilson happens to be one of the few financial executives who publicly fought Mr. Trump’s election and supported Hillary Clinton. A lifelong Democrat who was involved in helping to start Teach for America, Mr. Tilson also happened to be one of the rare Wall Street executives who had donated to Ms. Warren and actively sought new regulations for the industry. Recently, he gave Mrs. Clinton $1,000 so he could see Ms. Warren speak at a campaign fund-raiser. (He’s also far, far from a billionaire.)

As with Obama, and Occupy Wall Street, someone remind the history-challenged Warren that Wall Street tends to vote Democrat these days.