AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING: Ex-NPR Host John Hockenberry Accused of Sexual Harassment.

HMM: GM plans to go big with self-driving cars in U.S. cities in 2019.

AT AMAZON, Holiday Deals in Toys and Games.

Plus, new Deals in Tools and Home Improvement.

FASTER, PLEASE: Senate GOP repeals ObamaCare mandate.

We really need to remove its tentacles from across the land.

As Stephen Miller tweets, “Millenials, Kurt is right. Please follow his advice.” Indeed. But where would you advise them to move to, Kurt?

WHEN I WENT TO GET MY FLU SHOT, THE INSTA-WIFE PREDICTED THIS: U.S. experts concerned about efficacy of flu vaccine this year: A recent study shows this year’s version of the flu vaccine was just 10 percent effective in Australia, suggesting it could be a rough flu season in the United States.

HILLARY CLINTON DISPLAYS HER USUAL LEGENDARY SELF-AWARENESS:

Thursday night, a little more than a year after her shocking loss to President Donald Trump, Secretary Clinton returned to Philly for a promotional event at the Academy of Music for her campaign memoir, What Happened. At the event, which was sold-out but not quite full, with an audience about two-thirds female, Clinton was interviewed on-stage by Philly native and best-selling author Jennifer Weiner.

* * * * * * * *

When it came to sexism and the media, it was Weiner who brought up the elephant in the room, reading out a section of What Happened about the September 2016 Commander-in-Chief Forum on NBC, in which the host separately interviewed both candidates but was notably tougher on Clinton than Trump. That host? Matt Lauer.

“Every day I believe more in karma,” Clinton said to that, referring further to several “men who shaped the narrative” during the campaign who have since been sidelined in the wave of sexual harassment scandals.

Control-F “Bill Clinton” returns zero results, unexpectedly.

IT’S ALIENS, ISN’T IT. I KNEW IT! China’s Dark Matter Space Probe Just Detected… Something Very Interesting.

DEEP STATE UPDATE: Top FBI official assigned to Mueller’s Russia probe said to have been removed after sending anti-Trump texts.

The former top FBI official assigned to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election was taken off that job this past summer after his bosses discovered he and another member of Mueller’s team had exchanged politically charged texts disparaging President Trump and supporting Hillary Clinton, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

Peter Strzok, as deputy head of counterintelligence at the FBI, was a key player in the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to do government work as secretary of state, as well as the probe into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.

During the Clinton investigation, Strzok was involved in a romantic relationship with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who worked for Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The extramarital affair was problematic, these people said, but of greater concern among senior law enforcement officials were text messages the two exchanged during the Clinton investigation and campaign season, in which they expressed anti-Trump sentiments and other comments that appeared to favor Clinton.

So Hillary was investigated by people who love Hillary and hate Trump, and Trump is investigated by people who love Hillary and hate Trump. No appearance of impropriety there, no siree.

CHANGE: Range Rover’s first hybrid SUVs are almost here, and we’ve driven one.

BEST AMERICAN PRESIDENTS BASED ON THE MUSIC RELEASED DURING THEIR TIME IN OFFICE. I’m not sure if I agree with this, however:

For sure, President Carter saw all-time great albums like London Calling, The Wall, and Remain in Light released during his years as POTUS. But, disco also exploded during that era. For that, he can never be forgiven. President Carter loses points for disco, so he lands in the bottom half of this list.

There are loads of reasons to despise the man the residents of Springfield accurately dubbed History’s Greatest Monster, but disco isn’t one of them. Compared to the melodic and harmonic lacuna that is rap, which exploded in popularity after disco’s demise, that genre’s best songs stand up in retrospect as pretty decent pop confections, over which vocals were sung, rather than grunted. I explored that topic a few years ago in an article titled: Turn the Beat Around: A Reformed Disco Hater Looks Back at Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco.

RISE OF THE MACHINES: Wine Robots Are Rolling Into Europe’s Swankiest Vineyards.

JUST IN CASE YOU HADN’T NOTICED, while Trump got savaged for his “inappropriate” Pocahontas remark regarding Elizabeth Warren, note that she’s now being savaged from the left as a fake Indian, and even mocked on the Daily Show.

Plus, Trump’s “Frankenstien” tweet about Al Franken got a lot of flak, but Franken — like Warren — has gone from strong 2020 contender to damaged goods. Weird, huh?

FLASHBACK: “Ted Kennedy Made Secret Overtures to Russia to Prevent Ronald Reagan’s Re-Election.” From The Daily Signal in 2016:

Kennedy then offered up the possibility of having top media personalities such as Walter Cronkite, Barbara Walters, and Elton Raul, president of the board of the ABC television network, travel to Moscow to do television interviews with Andropov.

Everything old is new again. Except it’s a pretty safe bet that Trump does not have the social currency with today’s media elites to arrange favorable coverage of anything, with the possible exception of Fox News.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: 5 Christmas Songs That Should Be Buried Forever.

I’d also reintroduce pillorying for playing Christmas music in public before Black Friday. With caning on the second offense.

THIS IS WHY AMERICANS DON’T TRUST THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Pick up today’s Washington Post and scan the lead story headlined “GOP Secures Senate Votes To Pass Tax Bill.” So far, so good. Then check out the first sub-head: “MOST BENEFITS FOR BUSINESSES, WEALTHY.” That’s the controlling assumption of the analysis – not “objective reporting” – that follows.

The story’s lede claims the bill “bestows massive benefits on corporate America and the wealthy while delivering mixed blessings to everybody else.” Tax cuts mostly benefit the rich is the standard Democrat talking point and Post reporters Erica Werner and Damian Paletta dutifully frame their reporting in such terms.

But do the wealthy get bigger tax cuts than the middle class or the poor? Depends on how the effects of the cuts are measured. The Post reporters cite a Joint Committee on Taxation analysis that, among much else, concludes “only 44 percent of taxpayers would see see their burden reduced by more than $500 in 2019 but that high earners would fare much better than the poor under the bill.”

What the Post reporters don’t tell readers is that other measures of the Senate tax cut bill’s effects contradict their chosen – Democratic – narrative. To cite just one example, the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards looked at the aggregate percentage cuts by income range. Taxpayers earning $40,000 to $50,000 annually would see a 51 percent reduction. Similarly, those earning $75,000 to $100,000 would see a 17 percent aggregate reduction.

And the wealthy? Edwards calculated a 5.8 percent cut for those earning $1 million or more annually.

There other ways to slice and dice the effects of the Senate bill, but don’t look to the Post story for such useful information. And then journalists wonder why most Americans don’t believe them?

Their disbelief is deep indeed, as seen in the recent HarvardHarris Poll, as reported by The Hill, which said “65 percent of voters believe there is a lot of fake news in the mainstream media. That number includes 80 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of independents and 53 percent of Democrats.”

BTW, the online version of the Post story is no better even though there is infinitely more space to provide balance.

THAT’S NICE. BUT THE DAMAGE TO THE NFL’S REPUTATION IS LIKELY PERMANENT: Eagles’ Malcolm Jenkins to End Raised-Fist National Anthem Protests.

SO I WAS ON TUCKER CARLSON LAST NIGHT, talking about my USA Today column on Hillary and Libya. I didn’t post a notice because I figured there was at least a 50% chance I’d get bumped at the last minute for the Mike Flynn story, but they covered that in the first half hour.

UPDATE: Here’s the video, thanks to a commenter.

ANOTHER NO RUSSIA COLLUSION “THERE” THERE UPDATE: Former federal prosecutor Joseph DiGenova tells Fox News’ Laura Ingraham the Flynn indictment is another nothing-burger in Russia collusion. Maybe the strangest part of it, though, is why Flynn lied about legal activities:

“All of Flynn’s conversations with the ambassador to Russia were perfectly legal during the transition period and even before. It’s not a crime to communicate with an ambassador of a foreign country about foreign policy when you are the foreign policy adviser to the incoming president. So I don’t know why he lied. It’s inconceivable to me. If he had told the truth, there would be no crime.”

THEY’VE FOUND SOMEONE NEW TO BLAME: Jill Filipovic: The Men Who Cost Hillary The Election.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Grad student who showed debate on gender-neutral pronouns: My class was canceled with no explanation.

“I wonder if my mere presence is simply too triggering now.”

That’s how graduate student Lindsay Shepherd, who caused an uproar at Canada’s Wilfrid Laurier University by showing undergraduates a gender-neutral pronoun debate, makes sense of the unexplained cancellation of her department-wide class this week.

As she has become a campus celebrity among defenders of free speech, Shepherd has taken to Twitter to joust with critics who call her a white supremacist and threat to students who do not identify with their birth sex.

Wilfrid Laurier’s critics are calling on the school to reckon with its speech codes – under which Shepherd faced possible discipline – as the university launches a task force on freedom of expression.

When taxpayers tire of funding this sort of thing, it’ll be blamed on “anti-intellectualism.”

DC MCALLISTER: Don’t Be Fooled: The Left Doesn’t Care About Morals; It Cares About Power.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Prof slams OkCupid for privileging ‘white, heterosexual’ men.

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THE DISAPPEARED: The Secret Purge Inside Vice Media: Vice fired three employees as part of its investigation into allegations of sexual harassment—but it won’t even tell its own staff who got sacked.