NON-SCANDAL OF THE DAY: Trump used a wall metaphor in a commencement address to college graduates in 2004 and the Washington Post is on it.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Someone in Birmingham should respond to the Angela Davis controversy by endowing an award named after Judge Harold Haley, the judge murdered with firearms purchased by Davis.

TAKING SIDES: 100 percent of college admin, faculty in Maxine Waters’ district gave to Dems. It’s going to get hard to justify funding higher ed at current levels when it seems to be functioning as a Democratic Party super-PAC.

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WAIT, WHAT? Cher demands Pelosi end partial government shutdown, fund border wall: ‘DON’T DIE ON THIS HILL.’

I guess Cher agrees with this take: Schumer and Pelosi Own the Shutdown Even as They Try to Blame Trump.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump to Visit NOTACRISIS Border and Much, Much More. “Can you imagine all the things you could get out of Trump if you were willing to negotiate over that wall? If I were a Dreamer, I’d be pissed. If I were any one of the special interest groups that the Democrats claim to represent I would be angry too, here is an opportunity to get some stuff out of Trump and Chuck & Nancy are blowing it. But we all know that the Dems want Trump to lose his wall, more than they want their constituents to win.”

TO BE FAIR, MY NEIGHBORHOOD PROBABLY HAS THIS BEAT: GAO: The IRS Has 4,500 Guns, 5,000,000 Rounds of Ammunition.

TO THE BBC, HISTORY IS SOMETHING TO BE TWISTED BY THE TYRANNY OF NOW:

I’ve just watched the four-part animated series of Watership Down, shown on the BBC, with my daughter. She was slightly more aghast than me to discover that the aforementioned Bigwig was a bruv from the ’hood. And still more repelled by the elevation of a minor female rabbit character into a doughty campaigner for justice, the transgendering of a rabbit called Strawberry, and, most hilariously, the does calling each other ‘sister’ and keening a song of freedom in an orgy of #MeToo victimhood — their importance to the book she too had loved vastly exaggerated for fatuous political reasons.

None of this surprised me terribly, as I have become accustomed to the liberal, white, middle-class BBC bosses shoe-horning their absurd social justice twattery into every single drama production they commission. It had been evident a week or two earlier with their dramatisation of Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders, which was rightly panned even by journos who get much less worked up by this sort of thing than I do. My daughter, meanwhile, is very rapidly coming to the same conclusion as me, having junked Doctor Who for its inane PC gibberish a while ago and terrified they might soon introduce a transitioning Dalek or a woke cyberman.

Get woke, go broke: Exterminating Viewers — Doctor Who ratings plunge after Jodie Whittaker takes over with PC plots. Angry viewers have described recent episodes as ‘lectures’ as the show explores issues like racism, male pregnancy and disabilities.

THRUST VECTORING, 2019: A USMC F-35B takes off from the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, January 3, 2019.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: How Media Botched Their ‘Fact Checks’ of Speech.

The Democrats’ theme for the evening was “facts, not fear.” Many major media also adopted the same theme. The coordinated talking point began hours if not days before the speech even aired, with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota saying yesterday morning, “Fact-checkers are eating their Wheaties and getting extra rest since they will be working overtime tonight to separate fact from fiction on this border situation.”

As soon as the speech ended, White House press corps mascot Jim Acosta recited his rather groan-inducing rehearsed line that Trump’s address “should have come with a Surgeon General’s warning that it was hazardous to the truth.”

But when it came time to back up this talking point about factual inaccuracies, the media whiffed. Most of the alleged “fact” “checks” were instead critiques of opinions. Many critiqued things not included in Trump’s speech. And sometimes the “fact” “checks” dinged Trump for saying completely true things.

They’re much better at repeating a narrative than reporting the facts straight.

PAUL BEDARD: Ivanka Trump’s wins in the spotlight with Oval Office signings.

SHE SOUNDS HIDEOUS: Kamala Harris’ New Book Tries to Massage Her Record as a Prosecutor, But the Facts Aren’t Pretty: The book neglects to mention all the times Harris’ office appealed cases that were thrown out for gross prosecutor misconduct.

JEFF DUNETZ ON THE “GREAT LIBERAL LIE”: Illegal Aliens Commit Fewer Crimes.

The Federal Government does not release data that isolates illegal immigrants who commit crimes, they only look at citizens vs. non-citizens. “Non-citizens” is not a good benchmark because it includes both legal immigrants who have not yet become citizens, illegal immigrants and people who are here on a visa…all people in the U.S. who aren’t citizens. In other words, as the federal government does not ask about immigration for its crime data (only citizen status), any study claiming that on a national basis illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes is flawed. Additionally, the federal government records federal crimes. Most of the offenses people talk about in discussions about Illegal immigrant crimes are state crimes such as rape, burglary, murder, vehicular homicide, etc.

Some states do record immigration status, and it is done in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security for those states who share their illegal immigrant crime data with the federal government.

What he found won’t shock you, but it is good info to have on hand.

RELATED: Southern Border Violence Far Outpaces Mass Shooting Deaths In U.S. Yet Liberals Say Nothing.

#JOURNALISM: Was video of President Trump’s Tuesday address doctored? “That comparison reveals the Q13 video creating a loop of the President licking his lips — making it seem bizarre and unbalanced — it also seems that someone distorted the President’s face and my have added an orange tone to his skin. What do you think? Was this edited to clown the President? In a statement, Q13 noted that the video editor responsible has been placed on leave pending an internal investigation.”

MILITARY JUSTICE IS KIND OF LIKE CAMPUS JUSTICE: Navy Acknowledges Railroading of Marine Operator Falsely Accused of War Crimes.

A Marine Special Forces officer has been promoted in retirement after the Navy acknowledged that he was falsely accused of war crimes for leading his men through a terrorist ambush.

The Board for Correction of Naval Records admitted that Marine Maj. Fred Galvin was railroaded when he led the Corps’ first special operations unit (MARSOC) into Afghanistan. In March 2007 his unit was attacked by a suicide bomb followed by small arms fire from terrorists. Galvin and his men returned fire, killing 12 enemies, only to see senior military leaders and investigators accuse his men of massacring civilians.

This war has had too much lawyering from the very beginning, which may be why we didn’t win.

CHINESE IMPERIALISM: Can the Land of a Million Elephants Survive the Belt and Road? “Chinese-funded projects in Laos could hasten the eradication of the elephant population.”

Without active human intervention, Laos will have no more elephants by 2030. Indeed, with BRI road and railway construction steaming ahead, we may see the total extinction of native elephants in Laos before 2030. At present it seems that attempts to halt BRI infrastructure roll out in Laos are futile. The perceived economic growth potential is too tempting for “least developed” Laos to pass up, and there is simply too much money to be made by state and corporate cronies. Many people across the country have never seen a train, let alone a high-speed train, and there is much excitement about what the future holds.

Weird that I haven’t heard anything from Western environmentalists about this.

CHRIS BUSKIRK: America’s Southern Border Isn’t Just a Crisis, It’s a Disgrace.

AARON KLIEGMAN: The Mullahs Are Their Own Worst Enemies.

When the EU actually takes coercive action against Iran, the Islamic Republic must have done something so outrageous, so flagrant that even Brussels could not ignore it. Such was the case on Tuesday, when the EU imposed its first sanctions against Iran since the nuclear deal was implemented in January 2016. The new sanctions add Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and two senior Iranian officials to the EU’s terror list over suspicions that they helped organize multiple assassination plots in Europe—specifically plots to bomb a rally of an Iranian opposition group in Paris last year, to kill an Iranian opposition leader in Denmark last year, and to murder two Iranian dissidents in the Netherlands in 2015 and 2017.

Iran had the Europeans in the palm of its hand, and could have continued to use Brussels’ naivety and cowardice to its advantage in an attempt to isolate Washington diplomatically. But the ayatollahs could not help themselves—because of their paranoia, because of their twisted Islamist, anti-Western ideology. They had to attempt terrorist attacks and assassinations in Europe—not even the Middle East—to kill dissidents and others who speak out against their oppressive rule. Beyond their troubled psychology and ideology, Iran’s leaders are clearly nervous about their regime’s future. Otherwise, there would be no need to launch these plots.

Read the whole thing — but still, the Mullahs’ Regime has proven stubbornly long-lasting.

IF WE CARED ABOUT THE PLANET, WE’D BE ALL-IN FOR NUKES AND FRACKING: The Not-So-Pretty Fine Print of the ‘Green New Deal.’

Under the Green New Deal, within eleven years, the United States would be required to eliminate not merely nuclear power — which does not directly produce any carbon dioxide or air pollution — but all natural gas. Natural gas currently provides about 32 percent of America’s energy, and nuclear power produces another 10 percent. The “Green New Deal” would also eliminate coal, which provides almost 18 percent of America’s energy, and liquid natural gas and oil, which generates another 28 percent.

In other words, within eleven years, the United States would need to replace about 88 percent of its current energy sources. This is not possible short of a societal collapse to agrarian subsistence. (At least the Renaissance fairs will remain the same.)

Leftism always leads in the direction of Pol Pot.

CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS? Record Number of Families Apprehended at Southern Border in December.

QUESTION ASKED: Why Wasn’t Fence Stipulated In Secure Fence Act Of 2006 Built?

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME: Dems Say They Aren’t Refusing Their Pay During Shutdown Because it Would be a ‘Distraction.’

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Will Congress Penalize Colleges That Increase Tuition? “Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa will serve as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee during the upcoming 115th Congress. Senator Grassley’s decision to lead the Finance Committee may have important consequences for the nation’s colleges and universities. Grassley, a Republican, has criticized increased tuition charges in the face of the pronounced, tax-free growth of many college endowments.”

Good. They should crack down on administrative bloat in particular.

ANTITRUST: Why Regulators Went Soft on Monopolies: Federal officials become economists and lawyers who help kill competition for their corporate clients. Welcome to the new Gilded Age.

Antitrust authorities once fought against monopolies, but for the past four decades they have given a green light to merger after merger. The guardians who were meant to protect competition have become the principal cheerleaders of monopolies.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have become revolving doors for highly paid economists and lawyers whose only goal is to look after their corporate clients rather than voters, consumers, workers, suppliers, and competition.

Another argument for my revolving-door surtax.

Plus: Donald Trump must bust Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google monopolies like Teddy Roosevelt.