FASTER, PLEASE: Huge Breakthrough as Experimental Drug Is First-Ever to Suppress Huntington’s Protein.

BRUCE BAWER: Rigging the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

LAWPROF SENATOR IGNORANT ABOUT HOW ELECTION TO THE SENATE WORKS: Elizabeth Warren embarasses herself — BADLY — over demand for McConnell to seat Doug Jones ‘without delay.’ And yesterday she was “slut-shaming” fellow Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Kind of an embarrassment to the people of Massachusetts, huh?

NFL NETWORK NIGHTMARE: EXEC ASKED IF I PLANNED TO GET ‘KNOCKED UP.’

 As disturbing allegations of sexual misconduct mount against several NFL Network employees, Tuesday on Instagram broadcaster Lindsay McCormick detailed her experience with a network executive.

“I’ve been quiet about this for too long,” wrote McCormick, 30. “In my last interview with NFL Network a few years ago, the head of hiring talent said to me, ‘If we hire you, do you plan on getting knocked up immediately like the rest of them?’

Why are Democrat-dominated industries such cesspits of misogyny?

SPECIAL DELIVERY: Package of marijuana mysteriously delivered to Colorado Springs home.

Marian Goss tells 11 News the special delivery arrived at her door with a failure to deliver notice. Goss’ home was listed as the sender. The recipient was listed as an address in Virginia. Somehow, the package ended up at her home and she had no idea what she would find inside.

“I never thought in a million years that I would see what I saw in that box,” said Goss.

Goss opened the package because she feared it might be someone else’s Christmas present that was sent to the wrong house. She opened it up to find bundles of marijuana, stuffed in a dog food container, then into a cardboard box.

“It was in a dog food container, so we thought it was dog food,” Goss said. “But that’s not something you want to feed to your dog.”

Goss said she has no idea how it ended up at her house with her address on it.

“They attempted to deliver the package once and it came back to us, saying that it failed to be sent to the person in Virginia. It said that we are the sender and it came back to us, and we are definitely not the sender of that.

“I actually panicked.”

She thinks maybe someone else wanted to snag the box off her porch before she did.

Merry Christmas?

IT’S BASICALLY A POWER-GRAB BY ADMINISTRATORS, LIKELY TO BE WIELDED POLITICALLY: University of Arkansas professors want to stall a vote on system policy changes they say would upend the definition of tenure. Many fear the system is trying to focus on the vague concept of collegiality.

IN THE WASHINGTON POST: Democrats should ditch Robert Menendez.. Their principles will not demand that until there’s a Democratic governor to appoint a Democrat replacement.

A COMPLETELY, TOTALLY, 100% UNBIASED AND NONPARTISAN INVESTIGATION, WE SWEAR, PART 1,000,008: “Trump Should Go F Himself” – Texts Leak From FBI Agents On Russia Probe, Hillary Emails Investigation.

IN THE WAKE OF HARVEY WEINSTEIN, THE ART WORLD BEGINS TO PURGE “THE HIDDEN ENEMY:”

Forgive my cynicism, but I cannot help but think that the key to the timing of the letter is that the “workers of the art world” who signed it, having already achieved the desired “institutional access and career advancement,” and emboldened by the long-overdue disclosures around rape and sexual violence in the entertainment industry, decided to take this opportunity finally to cleanse the environment of what they perceive as undesirable elements. In the process, they risk going into a purging mode strikingly reminiscent of what happened under Comrade Stalin in my native country, the former ussr. It seems to me that despite the bombastic phrasing that recalls the furious tone of Russian avant-garde manifestos, these women do not realize where the primrose path of purging is likely to lead. If Soviet history is any indication, we should be seriously concerned by such ignorance. Once the processes are initiated, the enemy is identified, and the cogs of the apparatus are set in motion, there will be little reason to stop the purging at alleged sexual harassers. The clean-up will continue until the ranks of the art world are rid of any and all offensive elements. It is by no means impossible that even the righteous signatories of this letter may one day find themselves denounced for racism, classism, transphobia, ableism, homophobia, or any of the proliferating multitude of microagressive offenses.

Read the whole thing.

HMM: Kim Jong Un’s Mount Paektu visit may signal big decision.

“It’s unlikely that Kim went up the so-called sacred mountain for fresh air. He is likely to have considered how he will formulate external policies after having declared the regime a nuclear state,” a Seoul-based source told Dong-A Ilbo.

Some have suggested the regime may shift its external policy to seek dialogue with the United States, after declaring itself a nuclear state with its Hwasong-15 ICBM launch on Nov. 29.

“Resorting to further provocations could be difficult for North Korea since further nuclear tests at the Punggyeri site have become impossible due to safety concerns and there is growing talk in the U.S. Congress of a pre-emptive strike,” a former diplomat told Chosun Ilbo.

However, other analysts believe these speculations are merely guesswork, noting how Kim visited a symbolic palace after the Hwasong-14 missile launch on July 4.

In short, Kimology is probably no better a predictor than Kremlinology ever was.

ROGER SIMON ON STEVE BANNON’S BIG LOSS IN ALABAMA.

As featured, shortly after the election was called, atop the Drudge Report.

(Bumped.)

TYLER O’NEILL: 5 Things to Know About Doug Jones’ Victory Over Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate Race.

HACKED? CNN is investigating who accessed @AndersonCooper’s account and called Trump a ‘pathetic loser.’

The funniest take is this one:

BITCOIN MAY OR MAY NOT BE SOUND LONG-TERM, BUT IT’S A BUBBLE RIGHT NOW: The Force Behind Bitcoin’s Meteoric Rise: Millions of Asian Investors: Retail investors, mostly in Asia, are pushing the price of bitcoin to new heights.

Despite the attention focused on the launch of bitcoin futures in the U.S. last weekend, the center of gravity for trading the virtual currency, measured by volumes, has been in the East—starting in China, before shifting earlier this year to Japan and recently to South Korea as the latest hot spot.

Unlike past financial frenzies—such as the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, when U.S. retail investors only piled in at the later stages of the rally—individual investors have been first to the party, fueling bitcoin’s 1,600% rise this year. . . .

Various forces have stoked Asia’s bitcoin fever. While individual wealth has been growing in recent years, particularly in China and South Korea, lucrative investment opportunities can be hard to find, with property markets expensive and stock markets fully valued.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that Asians are more comfortable with the concept of virtual currencies such as bitcoin, particularly younger people who have grown up in a world of e-commerce and mobile payments.

When bitcoin pops — and it will — a lot of these people are going to be ruined, and angry. While people look at the Middle East, it’s entirely possible that a bitcoin crash will be the most destabilizing event of the decade. I wonder if anyone’s prepping for that.

THE REAL CHALLENGES FOR AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES.

BILL GERTZ: Russia Sharply Expanding Nuclear Arsenal, Upgrading Underground Facilities.

Russia is aggressively building up its nuclear forces and is expected to deploy a total force of 8,000 warheads by 2026 along with modernizing deep underground bunkers, according to Pentagon officials.

The 8,000 warheads will include both large strategic warheads and thousands of new low-yield and very low-yield warheads to circumvent arms treaty limits and support Moscow’s new doctrine of using nuclear arms early in any conflict.

In addition to expanding its warheads, Russia also is fortifying underground facilities for command and control during a nuclear conflict.

That’s disconcerting.

RED HOT ENGINES, COLD WHITE SNOW: A B-1B takes off from Ellsworth Air Force Base in snow-covered South Dakota.

UNDER MAO, THIS WAS CALLED “REVOLUTIONARY SELF-CRITICISM:” “A Harvard student recently made a bold public declaration, admitting that, while at a bar with friends one time, he talked about the attractiveness of the women in his class.”

BUT OF COURSE: Fusion GPS Paid Top DOJ Official’s Wife To Dig Up Dirt On Trump.

There is no part of this which does not stink.

IT’S THE SPENDING, STUPID: Feds Collect Record Taxes Through November; Still Run $201.8B Deficit.

Despite these record tax revenues, the federal government still ran a deficit of $201,761,000,000 for those same two months.

That is because the government spent $645,476,000,000 in October and November.

The $443,715,000,000 that the federal government collected in taxes in the first two months of this fiscal year was $12,873,120,000 more in constant 2018 dollars than it collected in the first two months of fiscal 2017 and $11,352,180,000 more than it collected in the first two months of fiscal 2016.

We’re on track for the second consecutive $600 billion-plus deficit, absent an economic downturn or major war.

SO GIVEN THE PARTY-DEFLATOR FACTOR, THAT WOULD BE FOUR IF SHE WERE A REPUBLICAN: Three Pinocchios for Pelosi on Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act.

AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases, Updated Hourly.

Plus, new Kindle Daily Deals.

And, today’s Digital Deals.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): “Sexually assaulted in full view of millions, the 18-year-old boy really has no option but to treat it as a joke.”