NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Inspect And Change Your Cabin Air Filter.

ASHE SCHOW: New Study Confirms Yet Again Gender ‘Wage’ Gap Due To Women Not Working. Guess How The Media Is Portraying It.

How many guesses do you need?

Here’s a small sampling:

“Women May Earn Just 49 Cents on the Dollar”

“Gender pay gap is worse than thought: Study shows women actually earn half the income of men”

“U.S. women earn half the income of men, new study finds”

“The Gender Pay Gap Is Way More F***ed Than You Thought”

The last one is from the always measured and reasonable “Jezebel,” in case you were wondering.

But what these articles are forced to admit is that the study finds the gap is caused by women taking more time off from work than men.

As Iowahawk noted ages ago, if capitalists could actually hire women at half the cost of men for the same work, men would never hold jobs again.

SIX EXECUTIVE BRANCH STAFFERS WARNED ON HATCH ACT VIOLATIONS FOR TWEETING “#MAGA.”

And on the flip-side: Federal Employees Are Warned Not to Discuss Trump ‘Resistance’ or Impeachment at Work.

SO MUCH SMOKE, SO LITTLE FIRE: A Collusion Probe Still Without Any Collusion.

ANTISEMITISM ON CAMPUS: Temple University stands by Marc Lamont Hill after CNN fires him for anti-Israel remarks.

Temple University stood by Marc Lamont Hill on Thursday, the same day he was fired from CNN after he gave a speech at the United Nations in which he used language critics described as a dog whistle advocating the elimination of Israel.

Hill, a now-former CNN commentator, is also a professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University in Philadelphia. While the school doesn’t necessarily agree with Hill’s controversial rhetoric, it feels he has the right to speak freely.

“Marc Lamont Hill has been quoted extensively over the last 24 hours. Marc Lamont Hill does not represent Temple University and his views are his own. However, we acknowledge that he has a constitutionally protected right to express his opinion as a private citizen,” a Temple spokesperson told Fox News.

I wonder what Temple would have said if Hill had called for the elimination or expulsion of trans people.

ECONOMICS ISN’T A SCIENCE: “A 2014 study by the International Monetary Fund’s Prakash Loungani found that not one of 49 recessions suffered around the world in 2009 had been predicted by the consensus of economists a year earlier.”

IMPORTANT NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: New Study Confirms: Gin & Tonic Is Miracle Cure To Prevent Colds This winter. I usually only drink gin & tonics in the summer. But come to think of it, I hardly ever get colds in the summer.

Flashback (from Steve): Drinking A Little Whiskey Might Actually Help Relieve Cold Symptoms.

I almost never suffer from colds, although I do sometimes get a headache.

BRIDGET JOHNSON: Tim Scott Dooms Farr Nomination by Vowing to Cast 51st ‘No’ Vote.

SPENGLER: A Sino-Russian “Greater Asia” from Shanghai to Lisbon. President Trump won’t meet Russian strongman Vladimir Putin at the Buenos Aires Group of 20 summit, but he will meet (and probably announce some kind of trade deal) with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Putin’s senior partner. Russia envisions a “Greater Asia” led by Russia and China, stretching from Shanghai to Lisbon, absorbing a Europe that is “not viable on its own.”

Demographics is destiny, and shrinking Europe’s — especially Russia’s — destiny looks increasingly like a Chinese satrap. Europe’s “elites” seem to think they can import enough Muslims to replace non-breeding Europeans, but dhimmitude is just another form of satrapy.

And do read the whole thing.

DECLASSIFIED: US Honors Swedish Pilots For Escorting Stricken SR-71 To Safety During Cold War.

Just the other day, four Swedish Air Force officers received Air Medals from the U.S. Air Force for a Cold War mission that had remained classified until just last year. On what might have been just any other day in 1987, they had helped escort a stricken SR-71 Blackbird spy plane through Sweden’s airspace and on its way to safety, potentially shielding it from any marauding Soviet aircraft.

Swedish Air Force Colonel Lars-Eric Blad, Major Roger Moller, Major Krister Sjoberg, and Lieutenant Bo Ignell got their medals during a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden on Nov. 28, 2018. The U.S. military as a whole awards Air Medals for singular acts of heroism or other particular meritorious achievements during a flight. Retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonels Duane Noll and Tom Veltri, the pilots aboard the SR-71 during the Cold War incident, were also present.

A great tale, well told. Read the whole thing.

STANDING UP FOR TYRANNY: For third semester in a row, women’s college funds pro-Venezuelan regime events.

BUREAUCRACY IN OUR NATION’S CAPITAL: Couple forced to prove New Mexico is a state while applying for marriage license. “A clerk in the D.C. Courts Marriage Bureau apparently thought New Mexico was a foreign country.”

OH: FBI Raids Home Of Whistleblower On Clinton Foundation, Lawyer Says. “The FBI raided the home of a whistleblower who was in possession of documents regarding the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One, according to the whistleblower’s lawyer, Michael Socarras.”

FIGHTING OPPRESSION: Don’t let colleges stamp out your rights during Christmas.

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Cohen Lied BLAH BLAH BLAH and Much, Much More. “So, basically, the Trump operation continued to conduct business while he was running for president. Sleezy lawyer Cohen may have lied about it. Nothing about TREASONOUS COLLUSION WITH RUSSIA TO STEAL THE ELECTION FROM HILLARY CLINTON® The end.”

So much smoke, so little fire.

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: Trump, American Greatness, and Brexit.

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP: The View Co-Host Flips When Told Obama Used Tear Gas: ‘I DON’T CARE!’

NOW OUT FROM KURT SCHLICHTER: A new Kelly Turnbull novel, Wildfire.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Violence, attacks on doctors plague Venezuela hospitals.

After a woman died while connected to a respirator at a hospital in central Venezuela last month, one of her relatives punched the attending doctor in the chest, blaming her for the woman’s death.

“They think when there’s no equipment or antibiotics that it’s the doctor’s fault,” said the doctor at the Hospital Central in Maracay, 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of the capital Caracas. She requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Hospital Central was one of 62 percent of hospitals across the country where doctors say they have suffered attacks by frustrated patients’ relatives, as violent acts in Venezuela’s decaying medical system have become increasingly common, according to a study published on Thursday by a doctors advocacy group.

In addition, 45 percent of hospitals reported robberies and shootings, the report showed, in the latest sign of how Venezuela’s five years of recession have left the country’s hospitals, once among the best in Latin America, in dire straits.

Yesterday: Venezuela Economy Contracted 29.8 Percent in Third Quarter.

This is Reuters, so I guess one man’s “recession” is another man’s “total economic collapse caused by socialism.”

WE HAVE THE WORST POLITICAL CLASS IN OUR HISTORY: Michael Barone: Who’s to blame? Weak leaders, weak institutions, weak voters?

In the wake of the midterm elections, conservative analyst Yuval Levin saw no winners. “It is the weakness of all sides, and the strength of none, that shapes this moment.”

You can see what he means. President Trump hasn’t gotten everything he wanted — no Obamacare repeal, not even the wall — from the Republican House of Representatives. And on one issue or another he’ll probably get something from Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats he couldn’t get from Paul Ryan’s Republicans.

Now, maybe House Democrats will overplay their hand and help Trump win re-election in 2020. And maybe Democrats, faced with a crowded field of presidential candidates, will choose an unelectable nominee.

But even though Republicans gained Senate seats and are in good shape to confirm conservative judges, Trump is weakened by the results. Republicans lost just about every House seat he carried in 2016 by 5 percent or less. And he got only 46 percent of the popular vote.

Do the math. Forty-six minus five is 41. No way a 41-percent candidate gets 270 electoral votes in a two-way race.

It doesn’t have to be this way. CNN analyst Harry Enten points out that Trump’s job approval on the economy at this point is the second highest of recent presidents. But his overall approval is the second lowest. The obvious advice: Behave in a more dignified manner.

But Trump is not alone among national leaders in behaving in a way that makes him weaker than he might be. It seems to be a common, though not quite universal, ailment.

Yep. Macron, Merkel, and May are all more unpopular, with good reason.

SURPRISING EXACTLY NO ONE WHO’S BEEN PAYING ATTENTION: Japan preparing to put US-designed stealth jets on an ‘aircraft carrier.’

Japan is preparing an order for roughly 100 US-designed F-35 stealth fighter jets in a deal that could potentially upend the balance of power in Asia, according to sources familiar with the process.

That order would include a version of the jet that can take-off and land vertically, a feature that could prompt Japan to transform some of its existing ships into aircraft carriers so that it can operate the fighters at sea — a capability they have not had since World War II, a source close to the F-35 program told CNN.

“With short take-off vertical landing capability you are now able to operate at sea. You are able to penetrate areas and reach ranges in a shorter distance which is an important capability,” the source said.

This move would put Japan back in the power projection business in a way it hasn’t been since the Great Mariannas Turkey Shoot of 1944.

Full background on Japan’s “helicopter destroyers” here.