ANDREW KLAVAN: Trump Has Made Our Government More Moral.

Trump has made our government more moral by making less of it: fewer regulations, fewer judges who will write law instead of obeying the law, fewer bureaucrats seeking to expand the power of their agencies, less money for the government to spend on itself. He has made government treat us more fairly and equally by ceasing to use the IRS and Justice Department for political ends like silencing enemies and skewing elections.

This is what moral government looks like. And if every male senator in America is grabbing the buttocks of some unsuspecting female while, at the same time, voting for more limited and less corrupt government, the senators are immoral, yes, but the government is more moral. That is why we should never let the leftist press game us with scandal hysteria, but should keep focused on voting in those who will help fulfill government’s moral ends.

Also, hearing the lamentations of the left is nice, too: “More than 700 employees have left the EPA since Scott Pruitt took over,” Think Progress tweeted today. Curiously, they seem to be implying that’s a bad thing.

HARD LABOR: Putin’s ex-economy minister sentenced to eight years in prison colony for accepting bribe.

Mr Ulyukayev was responsible for the Russian economy until a sting operation before dawn on 15 November last year. His downfall was orchestrated by Rosneft chief Igor Sechin, a powerful associate of Vladimir Putin. After inviting the former minister to his offices, he handed him a basket of sausages and another locked bag, containing $2m. Mr Ulyukayev was stopped by security agents waiting outside, and became the first cabinet minister to be arrested since Stalin’s henchman Lavrenty Beria in 1953.

The former minister insists he believed the bag contained fine wine, and in court challenged Mr Sechin to appear for cross-examination. On four occasions, the Rosneft chief refused.

Today, the judge mumbled through the verdict, somewhat nervously, and often repeating herself. In almost every detail, she sided with Mr Sechin and the prosecution. She was trembling as she read out the sentence.

Last week, prosecutors asked for a sentence of 10 years in prison colony. Mr Ulyukayev, 61, and visibly frailer than a year ago, likened this to a “death sentence.” In his final word, Mr Ulyukayev insisted on his innocence and compared his case to Stalinist show trials. “Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls,” he said. “It tolls for you.”

Why was the judge so nervous?

IN THE NAVY: USS Little Rock set to be commissioned Saturday in Buffalo.

BE EVIL: Google Is Using Its Immense Power To Censor Content That Doesn’t Fit Its Political Goals.

The Daily Caller released a funny video Tuesday of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai defending the committee’s upcoming net-neutrality rollback. Through Wednesday and Thursday, liberals and others who dislike Pai’s political position lost their minds. And by Friday morning, Google, one of the most powerful companies on the planet, had censored the video based on a bogus claim from a politically motivated man.

It took seven crucial hours and the full force of our news site to push Google and YouTube to reverse this political censorship. We were able to prevail because of the sizable contacts and resources of TheDC. An average citizen showcasing a political viewpoint Google and the left disagreed with would almost certainly have had a far more difficult — and fruitless — time fighting back.

I’m not a big fan of antitrust, but if any company deserves some tough regulatory scrutiny, it’s Google.

MATT DAMON GIVES CAR-CRASH INTERVIEW ABOUT HOLLYWOOD SEXUAL ABUSE:

After [Peter Travers of ABC] suggested that the disappearance of confidentiality agreements would surely be a good thing, Damon appeared to backtrack: “One hundred per cent,” he added. “I think that it’s important, especially in that, you know, we believe every woman who’s coming forward with one of these stories needs to be listened to and heard.”

Damon also insisted that he did not know about Harvey Weinstein’s predations, despite previously admitting to Good Morning America in October that he was aware in the Nineties that Weinstein had sexually harassed actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who was formerly in a relationship with Damon’s friend and frequent collaborator Ben Affleck.

“Everybody knew what kind of guy he was in the sense that if you took a meeting with him, you knew that he was tough and he was a bully, and that was his reputation. And he enjoyed that reputation, because he was making the best movies out there,” Damon said. “[With regard to the rape allegations,] nobody who made movies for him knew… Any human being would have put a stop to that, no matter who he was. They would’ve said absolutely no.

“I knew I wouldn’t want him married to anyone close to me,” he continued. “But that was the extent of what we knew, you know? And that wasn’t a surprise to anybody. So when you hear Harvey this, Harvey that — I mean, look at the guy. Of course he’s a womaniser … I mean, I don’t hang out with him.”

Curiously, Travers apparently chose not to ask Damon about his role, along with Russell Crowe, in personally calling at least one New York Times reporter in 2004 to gut a story on one of Weinstein’s bagmen.

THE SOLUTION TO ANY GOVERNMENT-CREATED CRISIS IS ALWAYS MORE GOVERNMENT: L.A’s “Solution” To Affordable Housing Scarcity Is A Circular Firing Squad.

Related (From Ed) At Ricochet, Richard Epstein on California’s Single-Family Home Gridlock.

WE ARE UNDERPREPARED FOR THIS: Game-changing attack on critical infrastructure site causes outage: Attack will serve as a blueprint for future attacks on other industrial systems. “The malware was most likely designed to cause physical damage inside the unnamed site, researchers from the Mandiant division of security firm FireEye said in a report. It worked by targeting a safety instrumented system, which the targeted facility and many other critical infrastructure sites use to prevent unsafe conditions from arising. The malware has been alternately named Triton and Trisis, because it targeted the Triconex product line made by Schneider Electric.”

HMM: ISIS Acknowledges NYC Subway Bomber, But Refuses to Claim Ullah as Their Own.

This report is from Bridget Johnson, whose unexplained and unacknowledged Twitter banishment remains unexplained and unacknowledged by Twitter management.

RELATED: Convicted Al-Shabaab Terrorist Rearrested in Texas for ISIS Support and Sharing Bomb-Making Instructions With Inmates.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. If the media wants Trump’s “fake news” rap to stop sticking, they need to stop producing fake news.

PHYSICAL GRAFFITI: He was a renowned surgeon — until a doctor found his initials burned on a patient’s liver.

QUESTION ASKED: Is The Oil Glut Set To Return?

Late last month, when OPEC agreed to extend its production cuts through the end of 2018, the U.S. EIA came out with data – on the same day as the OPEC announcement – that showed an explosive increase in shale output for the month of September, up 290,000 bpd from the month before.

Although there is a time lag on publishing production data, the huge jump in output in September, plus the spike in rig count activity over the past few weeks, points to strength in the U.S. shale sector. Against that backdrop, the IEA predicted that non-OPEC supply would grow by 1.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2018, a rather significant upward revision of 0.2 mb/d compared to last month’s report.

Adding insult to injury for OPEC, the IEA sees oil demand growing by just 1.3 mb/d. In other words, supply will grow at a faster pace than demand next year, opening up a global surplus once again.

Maybe I should buy a faster car.

THIS IS BAD: As Zika Babies Become Toddlers, Some Can’t See, Walk or Talk.

TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 1681: Robert Mueller And Lois Lerner.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: New Poll Reveals Patriotism Gap. “NFL Seen as Unpatriotic, Majority Says American Ideological Divide Can Never Heal.”

SAY, HAS AL FRANKEN RESIGNED YET?

HE’S GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS: The Last Jedi is reviewed by Sonny Bunch of the Washington Free Beacon.

Related: As Allahpundit tweets, the Last Jedi is getting “ratio’d” at Rotten Tomatoes. As of the time of this post, it has a 93% critics rating — and a 60% audience score.

JUSTICE: Charge upgraded to first-degree murder for driver accused of ramming Charlottesville crowd.

DUMB: There Will Be No Viking Longboats Cruising the Mississippi, Thanks to Hard-Headed U.S. Protectionism.

Viking announced a couple of years ago a plan to bring its luxe longboats to the Mississippi River, but last week the city manager from one those little communities got word Viking had terminated its plans, WQAD in the Quad Cities reports. The cruise ships Viking had been wanting to build and operate would have ended up costing double what they had planned, according to the report.

“As the details were being refined, it became the economics did not meet Viking’s goals,” a company statement read.

No new tourists. No new tourist revenue. No new tourism jobs.

Our own federal laws are to blame. More specifically, President Grover Cleveland’s Passenger Vessel Services Act (PVSA). The 1886 law requires that in order to ferry passengers between ports in the United States, the ship must have been built in the United States and be owned and operated by Americans.

If the absurd contours of this law sound suspiciously familiar, it’s because these restrictions are just like the Jones Act, the terrible protectionist law that uses similar rules and ultimately drives up the costs of shipping goods to U.S. islands and territories.

The supply/demand curve works — right until it crashes to zero against the brick wall of government.

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE: Female Democrat Congressional Candidate Drops Out of Race After Sexual Harassment Accusation Surfaces.

Andrea Ramsey, a Democratic candidate for Congress, will drop out of the race after the Kansas City Star asked her about accusations in a 2005 lawsuit that she sexually harassed and retaliated against a male subordinate who said he had rejected her advances.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the case told The Star that the man reached a settlement with LabOne, the company where Ramsey was executive vice president of human resources. Court documents show that the man, Gary Funkhouser, and LabOne agreed to dismiss the case permanently after mediation in 2006.

Ramsey, a 56-year-old retired business executive from Leawood, was one of the Democratic candidates vying to challenge Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder in 2018 in Kansas’ 3rd District.

She was running with the endorsement of Emily’s List, a liberal women’s group that has raised more than a half-million dollars to help female candidates who support abortion rights.

Ramsey will drop out on Friday, her campaign said.

I’m sure there are more cases out there. Maybe men will finally feel safe coming forward.

ANOTHER SHINING MEDIA MOMENT: Drunk NY Daily News Reporter Arrested After Causing a Scene at Hospital.

Did his Twitter obsession with Net Neutrality lead to the above headline? Or was it simply working at the New York Daily News?

In any case, shades of Iowahawk warned in his classic 2008 “Bylines of Brutality” piece, “As Casualties Mount, Some Question The Emotional Stability of Media Vets.”

THE HILL: Prominent lawyer sought donor cash for two Trump accusers.

California lawyer Lisa Bloom’s efforts included offering to sell alleged victims’ stories to TV outlets in return for a commission for herself, arranging a donor to pay off one Trump accuser’s mortgage and attempting to secure a six-figure payment for another woman who ultimately declined to come forward after being offered as much as $750,000, the clients told The Hill.

The women’s accounts were chronicled in contemporaneous contractual documents, emails and text messages reviewed by The Hill, including an exchange of texts between one woman and Bloom that suggested political action committees supporting Hillary Clinton were contacted during the effort.

Bloom, who has assisted dozens of women in prominent harassment cases and also defended film executive Harvey Weinstein earlier this year, represented four women considering making accusations against Trump last year. Two went public, and two declined.

In a statement to The Hill, Bloom acknowledged she engaged in discussions to secure donations for women who made or considered making accusations against Trump before last year’s election.

Read the whole thing.

THESE ARE THE CRAZY YEARS: A top aide to the Texas Attorney General had to resign after sharing (on Facebook) that much-shared “Can We Be Honest About Women?” piece in The Federalist.. From the comments: “The man was guilty of a thoughtcrime. He’s lucky they didn’t let rats gnaw his face.”

Plus: “Society has decided that honest opinions should only come from retired people.”

Here’s the Federalist piece.

WELL THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW (Part Deux): Voice of America reports that “Virtual Reality Allows Patients to Preview Their Own Surgery.”

The night before Luna’s surgery, Collins gives her a headset to wear and lets her travel through her own brain. Luna admits being “a nervous wreck” before seeing the path Steinberg would take to locate the aneurysm. She sees where he will clip off its growth so the clot can be resorbed, eliminating her pain. “Now I understand exactly what’s going to happen,” Luna says. Her husband also took a turn at the virtual reality flight. “This makes me understand it 100 percent,” Rene Luna says. “That extra understanding gives me a lot more confidence.”

Good pilots file a flight plan, so why not brain surgeons? Also sounds like a good way to ward off frivolous malpractice suits by developing a record before surgery.

CHANGE: Gillibrand, Cruz Bill Would Give Capitol Hill Sexual Harassment Victims More Rights. “Gardner, other senators want to end mandatory non-disclosure agreements, taxpayer-funded settlements, and confidential settlements.”