VIDEO: How ZTE helps Venezuela create social control. “Venezuela’s Fatherland Card is troubling citizens and human-rights groups who believe it is a tool for Maduro to monitor the populace and allocate scarce resources to people his government deems most loyal.”
Background on the “Fatherland Card” here.
SCIENCE, UNSETTLED: Climate contrarian uncovers scientific error, upends major ocean warming study. “The findings of the … paper were peer reviewed and published in the world’s premier scientific journal and were given wide coverage in the English-speaking media. Despite this, a quick review of the first page of the paper was sufficient to raise doubts as to the accuracy of its results.”
Details to follow.
AMERICA: Wisconsin company buys employees firearms for Christmas. “Giving employees their choice of revolver as a gift is part of an effort to promote personal safety and team building, the company’s co-owner said.”
OR LEADING HISPANIC SENATOR TED CRUZ, FOR THAT MATTER:
IN THE MAIL: From Tim Wu, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age.
SHOCKER: Valerie Jarrett Writes Op-Ed Supporting Pelosi for Speaker. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?”
WHEN YOU HATE AMERICA: A Massachusetts college’s library shared an article about “Decolonizing Thanksgiving,” using the hashtag “#NationalDayOfMourning.”
The Pilgrims were just immigrants looking for a better life. How dare you Thanksgiving-shame them.
ED MORRISSEY: Republicans’ Arizona debacle.
The loss in Arizona highlights their tenuous hold on the key states necessary to winning the Electoral College. The losses in the “blue wall” states show that normal or higher Democratic turnout will block Trump from that path to victory, unless Clinton tries running again. Without those states, Republicans can only get to 260 votes using the 2016 election results as a template. Republicans would have to make a big push in Virginia, or perhaps some combination of Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire in order to get the 10 electors necessary to win without the Midwestern flips that made Trump president.
If Sinema’s win means Arizona is in play — and Trump’s 49 percent in 2016 already suggested it might be — then there is almost no place to make up the loss of those 11 electors. On top of that, the close election in Georgia’s gubernatorial race also potentially puts that state in bubble status as well, with another 16 electors at risk in a state Trump won with only 51 percent of the vote. Suddenly, Trump has gone from 306 electors to just 249 or even 233.
Arizona turning purple should have Republicans wringing their hands for the next two years.
Given all the ticket-splitting in Arizona between the gubernatorial and senate candidates, I’m not yet certain there’s a larger lesson to draw here, as Ed has done. McSally wasn’t as strong on the campaign trail as she could or should have been, and Sinema ran a smart (if fundamentally dishonest) campaign, and enjoyed serious media tailwinds. So Arizona seems to me like less of a referendum on Trump, and more of a case of all politics being local. But we’ll see.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: DC Carry Permits Jump Over 1440 Percent Since District Went ‘Shall Issue.’
The Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to The Daily Caller Tuesday that 1,896 concealed carry permits were issued by MPD for the calendar year to date 2018.
MPD noted that several hundred approvals came from applications submitted in late 2017. These were included in the current 2018 approval number, which is why the total number of 2018 applications for DC concealed carry permits to date is 1508 — a number lower than the 2018 approval number.
Prior the court ruling, according to The Washington Post, only 123 people had active D.C. concealed carry permits and MPD previously denied 77 percent of applicants for not providing the once-mandated “good reason” to carry.
Excellent.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, ORWELL EDITION: Loyalty Oaths, Diversity Mandates, Faculty ‘Training’ at San Diego State.
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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: It’s a condensed version this morning, but still with plenty of links to stories you might have missed.
A RIGHT SMART WONK TO RUN HOUSE GOP POLICY? Quin Hillyer, who, like the insurance commercial, knows a thing or three about what makes effective congressmen, has a solid piece this morning in the American Spectator on why Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) should be the next chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee.
“In the political world that congressmen inhabit, the head of the policy committee must be able to promote policy that works both in action and in the court of popular opinion. Palmer understands this,” according to Hillyer. Exactly.
DUSTY RIDE: Soldiers assigned to Bandit Troop, 1st Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment exit a CH-47 Chinook helicopter during a training exercise in Iraq.
TRADE: This Year, Ironically, First U.S. Deficit Record In 12 Years.
According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, the U.S. trade deficit will almost certainly set a record in 2018 for the first time in 12 years , new data suggests for the first time.
It’s been a remarkable run without a deficit. To provide context, prior to 2006, the last record-setting year, the United States had set a record 11 of the previous 12 years.
It is also not without irony that the run of years without a deficit would come to an end under President Trump.
There’s nothing ironic about it. The economy and the dollar are both strong under Trump, meaning we can afford to buy more stuff.
I REMEMBER WHEN MONEY IN POLITICS WAS BAD: NeverTrump’s Billionaire Leftist Benefactors. But this explains some things.
VERONIQUE DE RUGY: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Right about Amazon’s Corporate Welfare. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Ocasio-Cortez is mostly correct on this matter, and her conservative critics are wrong. Handouts like this to Amazon and other prominent companies are appalling in their cronyism, pure and simple. I agree that she doesn’t understand economics and that her socialist ideal is a recipe for fiscal and economic disaster. But her conservative critics reveal their own economic misunderstanding when they support targeted tax breaks as a means of creating jobs.”
Tax rates should be uniform. Special tax breaks, not generally available, should be taxed as income to the recipient.
MARTA HERNANDEZ: Gun Grabber Blood Dance.
ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE? Exclusive: 72 percent say media ‘dividing Americans,’ spreading ‘hate’. Trump gets blamed too, but the press gets blamed more.
The health and insurance industries are ripe for disruption.
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