THIS OBVIOUSLY REPRESENTS A THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY: New House: More Democrats from California than from 36 other states combined.

TO BE FAIR, IT ISN’T 2020 YET: Even Hillary can’t hold a candle to outsized sore loser Stacey Abrams.

REMEMBER, WHEN THIS HAPPENS IT’S JUST WEATHER, NOT CLIMATE: Bitterly Cold Thanksgiving, Black Friday Will Be Among the Coldest on Record in Parts of the Northeast.

Related: Did you notice it snowed in Houston last week?

Remember: Fallen Angels is just a novel.

NONSENSE! ALL THE BEST PEOPLE HAVE ASSURED ME THAT VOTING FRAUD IS A MYTH: Election fraud scheme on L.A.’s skid row got homeless to sign fake names for cigarettes and cash, D.A. says.

PUSHING BACK AGAINST IDENTITY POLITICS IN ACADEMIA: FASORP (Faculty, Alumni and Students Opposing Racial Preferences) recently filed Title VI/Title IX lawsuits against the Harvard Law Review and the New York University Law Review (in both cases Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is also named as a defendant for failing to enforce the law). FASORP is being represented by the very talented Jonathan Mitchell, former Solicitor General of Texas.

The NYU Law Review in particular has made itself a rather obvious target. It’s not just that it discriminates; it has quotas. The Harvard Law Review isn’t much better. It has quotas too, but it is a tad more delicate in how it presents them on its web site.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states, “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is similar, but applies only to educational institutions. It states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the Supreme Court watered down Title VI by construing it to allow colleges and universities to discriminate in the name of diversity. But the Court has consistently come down hard on colleges and universities that set actual quotas (UC Regents v. Bakke (1978)) or set numbers of “points” for an applicant’s race (Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)).

The NYU Law Review sets quotas. Its web site declares that it “evaluates personal statements in light of various factors, including (but not limited to) race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, socio-economic background, ideological viewpoint, disability, and age.” It then goes on to state that “Exactly 12 students will be selected by the Diversity Committee” for membership.” Really? Exactly 12?

The Harvard Law Review is only a bit subtler. It sets aside exactly 18 seats for “holistic review,” quickly adding the it is “strongly committed to a diverse and inclusive membership” and that “[a]pplicants who wish to make aspects of their identity available through the Law Review‘s holistic consideration process will have the opportunity to indicate their racial or ethnic identity, physical disability status, gender identity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status.”

I plan to keep an eye on this litigation.

BURGERS AND FRIES: BEST THING FOR YOU! CDC: Do not eat ANY Romaine lettuce amid E. coli outbreak.

HMM: Democrats Have Devised A Way To Dilute Trump’s Judicial Picks.

California Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D) and Kamala Harris (D) are utilizing their positions on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee to try and have a say in who should fill vacancies in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and various district courts.

The two legislators sent a letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to let the Trump administration know that they’re ready and willing to come to a compromise nominees.

Were they able to come up with a reason Trump should want to compromise with them?

JOURNALISM: “BuzzFeed was forced to issue a correction and delete a tweet because their writers and editors are so young they had no clue 1. who Smokey Bear was and 2. what Smokey Bear actually did.” Assigning this error to mere youth is charitable, I think.

SPOILER: THEY’RE FLEEING. The only options for Illinois millennials: fight or flight.

Dowling calls for Illinois millennials to get engaged. Kudos to him for the wake up call.

But the question of what exactly Dowling wants millennials to fight for remains. He doesn’t make clear whether he favors passing the tough reforms like a constitutional amendment so the state can restructure not-yet-earned pension benefits, or just more tax schemes and the pension “fixes” Pritzker is considering. (More on Pritzker’s progressive tax scheme and his potential pension fixes here, here and here.)

If Dowling favors more taxes and “fixes”, he’ll need to revisit his opinion piece – especially the line where he says, “We are the ones that will shoulder the $129 billion for the foreseeable future.” Dowling wrongly assumes Illinois millennials will stick around to pay the higher tax bills and face the cuts in services. But millennials are highly educated and an extremely tech-savvy generation. They don’t have to stay in Illinois to find their future.

The data already tells us they aren’t.

Illinois has lost a net of 107,000 millennials and their dependents to other states across the nation since 2012, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

It’s a stunning number.

Yes, but hardly shocking. Illinois has probably already entered a fiscal death spiral, and the state will go broke in the two ways made famous by Ernest Hemingway.

WHEN “ROAD DIETS” KILL: Paradise narrowed its main road by two lanes despite warnings of gridlock during a major wildfire. “The so-called Skyway ‘road diet’ slowed traffic, and a local civic group donated benches and landscaping to beautify the zone. Nearly two weeks ago, Skyway was the scene of unspeakable horror when the worst wildfire in California history besieged Paradise. Up to 27,000 residents trying to escape the flames instead were stuck in traffic, the buildings around them burning. Some died in their cars when the fire roared over them.”

God spare us from the political class’s fads.

HMM: No winners in US-China trade spat — says who? “The EconPol Europe study calculates that Chinese exporters are bearing approximately 75 percent of the costs, meaning that eventually a net gain of $18.4 billion will be added to the US economy. Two factors play a major role in this. The more obvious one is the grave imbalance of the volumes imposed by Washington and Beijing. But what’s no less important is that the US tariffs were levied strategically, making sure it wouldn’t be hard to find substitutions for affected Chinese imports.”

Nonsense. Everyone knows that Trump is just an angry toddler who lashes out with no strategy at all. Of course, the second- and third-order consequences of this sort of thing are largely beyond strategic calculation.

OKAY, IT’S A NAME THAT PARTY, BUT THE INTERESTING THING ABOUT THIS STORY CIRCULATING NOW IS THAT IT NAMES MARCIA FUDGE, WHO WAS CHALLENGING NANCY PELOSI: The many important people who vouched for wife-beater and former judge Lance Mason.

Mason was arrested Saturday after he was identified as a suspect in the fatal stabbing of the ex-wife. Shaker Heights police have charged Mason with felonious assault after he crashed into the SUV of a police officer responding to a harrowing 911 call from Mason’s sister. Mason remained hospitalized Tuesday and police expect to file more charges against him.

Authorities have not said what precipitated Saturday’s deadly attack.

Dozens of letters written on Mason’s behalf between his August 2014 arrest for the first attack on Fraser Mason and when his disciplinary case went before the Ohio Supreme Court in October 2017 showed none of Mason’s friends and colleagues could believe Mason was capable of carrying out such violence once, let alone twice.

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, four current judges who served alongside Mason on the bench, John J. Russo, Hollie Gallagher, Brendan Sheehan and Joan Synenberg, former Judge Ronald Suster, judge-elect Bill McGinty were among those who condemned the attack, but threw the weight of their reputations behind Mason’s character.

Fudge said in her letter, which was addressed to visiting Judge Patricia Cosgrove in August 2015 as Cosgrove prepared to sentence Mason after he pleaded guilty to felonious assault, that she was “deeply saddened” by Mason’s actions, which ran contrary to his reputation as an advocate for his community.

Nancy Pelosi didn’t get to be Nancy Pelosi without knowing how to torpedo challengers.

KABUKI: Ocasio-Cortez Not Sold on Ousting Pelosi Because Pelosi Opponents Not Diverse Enough. “Congresswoman-elect fears that ouster attempt by segment of caucus ‘creates a window where we could potentially get more conservative leadership’.”

That doesn’t seem like much of a risk.

ROGER KIMBALL: The Joy Of Being Right At Thanksgiving.

INTERESTING:  Russell Rocks Red Suit in ‘Christmas Chronicles’.

LOOK, IT’S JUST A MEASURE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARIES CAME UP WITH. TO TIE IT TO ANY KIND OF CONSTANT OUTSIDE EARTH IS LIKE INSISTING TODAY IS THE 30TH BRUMAIRE 227. IT DOESN’T MAKE IT MORE EXCITING. IT JUST MAKES US FEEL LIKE YOU’RE UPPING THE ANTE ON CRAZY:  Kilogram Untethered from Earthly Objects.