KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY (AND KEEP LOTS OF POWDER): What Will Happen to Gun Sales Now that the Democrats Are Out of Power?

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF DONALD TRUMP WERE ELECTED, PEOPLE WOULD FEEL FREE TO TREAT IMMIGRANTS CRUELLY. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Gigi Hadid Faces Major Backlash Over Her ‘Racist’ Melania Trump Impression During AMAs Hosting Gig.

KURT SCHLICHTER:

The left is trying to come to grips with its utter rejection, and its response to Donald Trump will be to fall back on an endless series of freakoutrages – hyperbolic, unhinged, hack media-fueled spasms of faux moral panic every time he dares do anything.

Appoint someone to a job? Freak out – it’s an outrage!

Go to dinner? Freak out – it’s an outrage!

Actually keep promises made to the voters? Freak out – it’s an outrage!

But it isn’t going to work. Not anymore. Not with the form of the Destructor Hillary and the rest of super smart Team Smugfail chose. Freakoutrage fatigue is in effect. You can cry Wolf Blitzer all day long and nobody cares.

It’s important to understand why liberals are so angry and so scared. They are angry because they believe they have a moral right to command us, apparently bestowed by Gaia or #Science or having gone to Yale, and we are irredeemably deplorable for not submitting to their benevolent dictatorship.

They are scared because they fear we will wage the same kind of campaign of petty (and not so petty) oppression, intimidation, and bullying that they intended to wage upon us.

Indeed. Plus: “I was considering being magnanimous in our total victory, but that lasted until a bunch of loving, tolerant, peaceful anti-Trump demonstrators jumped my friend and hurt his dog.”

JOHN TIERNEY: The Real War On Science: The Left has done far more than the Right to set back progress.

UNWISE LATINA: Supreme Court justice Sotomayor slyly encourages anti-Trump protests to continue.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Just saw this on Facebook:

TRICKLE DOWN: Facebook plans to boost UK headcount by 50% as gov’t signals corporate tax rate cut.

Reducing corporate taxes increases jobs and investment — who knew?

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1292: Boston Herald Editorial—IRS Scandal Belies President Obama’s Claim That His Has Been A Scandal-Free Administration.

ROGER SIMON: Is All News Fake News?

The late Michael Crichton knew the answer.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. If there was a demand for smart guns, they would already be on the market.

Last week the Department of Justice released guidelines for smart-gun manufacturers. Obama has made “gun safety” a priority during his second term as president and since the Congress is in the control of the Republicans, he has been unable to pass any gun control legislation. The Democrats controlled both the Senate and the House during part of Obama’s first term, but the President chose not to make any gun control moves, probably because gun control doesn’t play well at the ballot box. As with other unsavory political issues rejected by the population, Obama has turned to his imaginary executive power to curb gun violence and pushing the smart gun is one misguided way to do that.

A “smart gun” is a gun that will only fire when an authorized user tries to use it. Theoretically.

The new guidelines are voluntary, so they are useless.

You might think the Obama Administration had learned something about the futility of using the federal government to conjure up profitable markets by fiat or subsidy or mandate, but no.

PEOPLE HAVE SAID THIS FOR DECADES, BUT THEY WOULDN’T LISTEN: Minority Identity Politics Creates Majority Identity Politics.

The intellectual historian Mark Lilla has a must-read essay in today’s New York Times explaining how the academic and media fixation on identity politics doomed the center-Left this election cycle. One of his key points: The Democratic Party’s decision build its coalition around race and gender differences, and emphasize those differences in order to mobilize its base, predictably produced a parallel response from the identity groups that were not included . . . .

We often think of the diversity-obsessed left and the alt-right as diametrically opposed to one another, in substance and style. But in their focus on identity, the groups are indistinguishable, which actually leads them to a number of overlapping positions.

Plus: “Both left and right see the politics of group identity as useful to securing short term gains. But in the long run, it will not produce anything good—only tribalism, distrust, and, ultimately, violence.”

Yes, but haven’t had a political class that is willing to sacrifice short-term power for the long-term good of the community for decades.

THE REAL WAR ON SCIENCE: Which side of the political spectrum poses a threat to science? The Left, I argue in City Journal. I’d be glad to argue it on stage, too, but so far I’ve had no luck finding anyone to debate it. Chris Mooney, the author of “The Republican War on Science,” ducked an offer to debate. So did Naomi Oreskes, the co-author of “Merchants of Doubt,” another book that promotes the myth of a right-wing war on science. Leftists have always used science — or pseudo-science — to justify expanding the power of the state, from “scientific socialism” to eugenics to the “population crisis.” To a dedicated leftist, research that contradicts the progressive agenda must be wrong — and must be taboo. Science depends on the continual testing of hypotheses, but the Left is more interested in silencing heretics. Why debate when you already know the truth?

CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: Democrats Should Dump Pelosi, Abandon Ellison for DNC.

Few have stepped up to question why the party would elevate Ellison, who has a past connection to Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam and famously compared the 9/11 attacks to the Reichstag Fire. Though Ellison, an African-American who is the first Muslim to serve in Congress, later walked back his involvement with the Nation of Islam by agreeing the group was anti-Semitic, he would be an easy target for a party that can no longer win the heartland. Breitbart, no shock, has labeled Ellison a “radical leftist.”

While enough nervous members of Pelosi’s caucus pushed to delay leadership elections until after Thanksgiving — a sign of younger members’ concern over re-electing the woman they hoped would relinquish her post — it doesn’t appear that a challenge by Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio can prevail. The former speaker, and first female to hold the title, insists she still enjoys support from two-thirds of her colleagues.

Meanwhile, David Brock is forming a network of big donors to attack Trump throughout his term. This is hard-core denial. After watching the GOP reach its peak power since the 1920s, introspection and accountability seem to be in order, but Democrats are struggling to muster the requisite dose.

Ellison’s elevation indicates that the Democrats have “learned nothing and forgotten nothing” from the last few election cycles. And Pelosi’s leadership has been an absolute disaster for Congressional Democrats.

This is the almost-inevitable result of the Democrats having their elected officeholders whittled down to the party’s radical “Progressive” core.

DID OBAMA HAVE TO “EARN” HIS? Al Hunt: Trump Needs to Earn His Mandate.

If it weren’t for double standards…

HIGHER EDUCATION KEEPS PICKING A SIDE. AND IT’S THE WRONG SIDE. Middle East Scholars’ Group Moves To Delete “Nonpolitical” From Its Bylaws So It Can Support BDS Against Israel.

IS THE NEW YORK TIMES SLANTED? “Literally, yes.” Plus: “Here, I’ve straightened it up in iPhoto, using the vertical and horizontal lines of the building, which took about 3 seconds.”

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

Plus, Coupons Galore in Grocery & Gourmet Food.

Also, today’s Kindle Daily Deals.

And, fresh Digital Deals, updated daily.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Universities’ Unfunded Pensions Exceed Debt.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Washington Post Writer: ‘The Greatest Thing That Happened to the Republican Party Is Barack Obama.’

INFLUENCE-PEDDLING IS TOUGH WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF INFLUENCE: Shocker: In Wake of Hillary’s Defeat, Donations to Clinton Foundation Dry Up.

WAR FOR AGAINST OIL: Police clash with North Dakota pipeline protesters, arrest one.

I’d like to see the Trump Administration investigate into where these groups get their funding.

THEY GO LOW, WE GO HIGH: Hillary or Blood? Democrats and Post-Election Angry Mobs. “The violence is not that different from what happened in 1876 when Democrats were demanding that year’s popular vote winner Samuel Tilden be president, as it seemed Republican Rutherford B. Hayes would likely ascend to the presidency. . . . Angry Democratic mobs across the country would chant, “Tilden or blood,” and reportedly in a dozen states, club-wielding “Tilden Minute Men” had formed threatening to march into Washington to take the White House for their candidate. This came to Tilden’s chagrin, who sought to calm the rowdiness, as he didn’t want to be responsible for an insurrection, nor did he see it as a viable path to the presidency. Today’s angry Democratic mob perhaps aren’t yet chanting Hillary or Blood as they did in 1876. But some are getting violent.”

And the Dem leadership isn’t trying to calm the rowdiness, but is inciting it.

STEVE BANNON ON POLITICS AS WAR: Kimberley Strassel in the Wall St. Journal interviews Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Fascinating read. (Warning: I got the link via google and it went around the paywall. Others may not be so lucky.)

Mr. Bannon’s role in the Trump campaign was never made clear, though fellow adviser Kellyanne Conway called him the campaign’s “general” and a “brilliant tactician.” Mr. Bannon describes a close alliance of himself, Ms. Conway and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who developed a very “tight strategy” that relied on targeted speeches, rallies and social media. They envisioned two possible paths to the White House: one that hinged on Nevada and New Hampshire; the other that “leveraged Ohio” and rolled up Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. By the last week they saw the latter plan coming together.

The claim that the Trump campaign was chaotic in the final months is wrong, Mr. Bannon says. It benefited from “excellent data” furnished by the Republican National Committee and an operation in San Antonio set up by Mr. Kushner. The campaign was looking closely at “rural communities and the hinterlands that held a lot of votes,” which the Clinton campaign had “basically ceded” to Republicans. Mrs. Clinton also made the mistake of trying to “close the deal on a coalition” (minorities, millennials) that “she’d never closed on before.”

Mrs. Clinton aside, the reason Mr. Trump won, he says, “is not all that complicated. The data was overwhelming: This is a change election. People weren’t happy with the direction of the country. So all you had to do was to give people permission to vote for Donald Trump as an agent of change, make sure he articulated that message.” That, and paint Mrs. Clinton as “the guardian of a corrupt and incompetent elite and status quo.” Mr. Bannon believes Mr. Trump to be uniquely suited to make the case, as “one of the best political orators in American history, rated with William Jennings Bryan.”

Additional thought: “Mr. Trump “knows how to mix and match, get the best out of people, and I think it says something about what a historic figure he could be.”

If you can get past the paywall, read the whole thing.

LAWPROF PAUL HORWITZ WEIGHS IN ON THE HAMILTON CAST’S PREACHING:

What I find slightly more interesting and, given what I know about the political self-satisfaction of the class of people that can afford tickets to Hamilton, less likely to be noted outside of actual left or right circles, is what the decision to speak once necessarily implies about all the decisions not to speak. Every day, especially given both ticket prices and the nature of its audience and cultural appeal, Hamilton plays to an audience of neoliberals, militarists, wielders of economic power, beneficiaries of massive corporate corruption and economic and political inequality, people who exploit connections in a relatively closed circle of the rich and powerful, etc. And those are just the nights when Hillary Clinton catches the show! A substantial part of its consumer base and business model is brokers, corporate lawyers, legacy admits to the Ivy League, executives, managers, investors, media elites, and so on. Its audience base is people who can afford to complain about the help, or praise their nannies (who they may or may not pay well or legally), not the nannies themselves. No doubt the regular audience could do with a pointed extra-script lecture or two as well! But that would be bad for business, and disturb the audience-validating, as opposed to audience-challenging, function that is the essence of musical theater. None of this yet reaches Hamilton Inc.’s cozy relationship to President Obama, and the mutual benefits and ego-stroking that were involved in it. Maybe the PBS documentary cut this part out, but I don’t recall the actors at the White House performance of Hamilton breaking script to say, “Mr. President, we, sir–we–can’t help but notice that you have raided and deported the hell out of undocumented immigrants in record numbers. Also, what the [deleted] is up with the drones, or Syria, or….” I suppose that actually would have been seen as rude in people’s eyes. But once you start picking and choosing your exceptions and special occasions, of course you are making a political statement, conscious or not, about all the morally complicit and dubious audiences you are happy to flatter, the number of questionable actions–deportations, assassinations, killings, etc.–you are willing to “normalize,” and so on.

Well, that would interfere with the smugness.

PORN STAR SYDNEY LEATHERS: ‘I’m Sorry’ for Helping Elect Donald Trump.