I MEANT TO POST THIS STRATEGYTALK PODCAST LAST MONDAY: But it’s still packed with background information that’ll be useful for another six months — or more. Ukraine: War, Corruption and Politics. If you like the podcast, please subscribe.

LET ‘EM STARVE: UN Warns It Will Run Out of Money by End of the Month.

ALGERIA’S “SMILE REVOLUTION” BOILS BELOW THE RADAR: My latest Creators Syndicate column (bumped).

The “if it bleeds, it leads” news media are missing a consequential social and political event that is Algeria’s most serious and genuine civil rebellion since the 1950s and ’60s when France tried to suppress Algeria’s independence movement (which, ironically, was led by the FNL).

More:

“Sudan’s 2019 revolutionaries and Hong Kong’s protesters articulate goals akin to those of the young Algerians. All three movements despise dictatorships and, on their own terms, seek to establish a Western-style civil society with an elected government operating under the rule of law. Alas, Marxist professors and multicultural academics will utterly fail to understand.”

Check it out.

BONE FROM ABOVE: A B1-B photographed from the Stratotanker that just refueled it. What a beautiful airplane, above and below the clouds. The B1-Bs are scheduled to retire before the B-52. But recall the F-117 was retired — except it’s still flying missions.

THE PANIC IN SESAME STREET’S NEEDLE PARK: Sesame Street tackles addiction crisis. “‘Sesame Street’ is taking a new step to try to help kids navigate life in America — it’s tackling the opioid crisis. Sesame Workshop is exploring the backstory of Karli, a bright green, yellow-haired friend of Elmo’s whose mother is battling addiction. The initiative is part of the Sesame Street in Communities resources available online.”

WE’LL RUN OUT OF EVERYTHING BUT “UNEXPECTEDLYS”: Elizabeth Warren Vows to Remake Capitalism. Businesses Are Bracing. “The Democratic Party’s favored presidential candidate has proposed sweeping changes to how business operates; many executives expect she would tack center.”

No front-runner has proposed such sweeping changes to how businesses operate. A President Warren would seek to regulate big tech companies as utilities, break up big banks and split them from securities dealers, ban fracking of oil and gas, phase out carbon emission from buildings, cars and power plants in eight to 15 years, require big companies to appoint worker representatives to at least 40% of board seats, ban private health insurance and, effectively, for-profit college, and negotiate down drug prices.

Her policies would directly affect companies with sales of nearly $5 trillion and stock-market value of more than $8 trillion, a third of the S&P 500 stock index. Taxes on the wealthy and corporations would rise sharply.

That, in turn, has led to nervousness among some executives. “She could create an environment where it is next to impossible to function” for health insurers, said Vicky Gregg, a former chief executive of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and now partner in a private-equity firm. “There’s no question that keeps you up at night if you’re a health-plan executive.”

Fear will keep the local executives in line, to borrow a phrase.

The real goal of course isn’t to “remake” capitalism. Rather, it’s to create opportunities for corruption and graft.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SEND IDIOT TRUST-FUND BABIES TO BE INDOCTRINATED AT LEFTIST PRIVATE SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES: They feel guilty that their parents’ created wealth and prosperity, and dissipate the family’s money on highly dubious leftist political ventures. Comment from a friend: “A bunch of Lillian Reardons.”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Black high school coaches ousted after leading pre-game chant featuring the N-word.

HMM: Are Almost All Journalists On Adderall? “Whether these people are jacking themselves up with drugs or not, it’s a bad idea to fill your evening staring into these anxious faces and hearing their intense chatter. I was watching one of those shows yesterday — I won’t say which one — and they were talking about the possibility that Attorney General Barr misrepresented what is in the Barr report. There was loud, fast talking; darting, over-wide eyes; and hand gestures so big that I paused the show and exclaimed that it looked like a wild late-night party.”

WITH DNC IN MIND, CITY BANS CARRYING URINE, FECES: Environmentalists have a new target: Charmin toilet paper.

(Classical reference in headline.)

NOW THESE GUYS LOOK CRAVEN AND INDECISIVE: Apple, Google Pull Hong Kong Protest Apps After China Uproar. “HKmap.live raised concerns of endangering law enforcement and residents; ‘The Revolution of Our Times,’ violated rules related to sensitive events,’ Google says.”

A SMALL BLOW AGAINST THE LEFTIST CULTURE OF IMPUNITY: A University of Nevada-Reno student is facing charges after a video allegedly showed him knocking over a Turning Point USA table.

AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases – Updated Every Hour.

Plus, Best Selling Products – Updated Every Hour.

Also, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

And, shop the Kindle Deals of the Day.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: ESPN College Game Day and Hong Kong Freedom Edition.

ELECTRIC CARS COULD BE JUST ANOTHER ECOLOGICAL DISASTER:

It sounds counterintuitive but until any nation is in a position to generate the bulk of its electricity from solar, wind, nuclear or hydropower, electric cars could cause at least as much harm to the planet as continuing to run gasoline- or diesel-powered cars.

The environmental ramifications of widespread electric-car use are largely unknown. The costs of gasoline consumption, on the other hand, are predictable and can be mitigated by improving efficiency and developing green travel policies, including taxation, car-sharing and the expansion of public transport.

Until our power comes from renewables, this could be the safest road ahead. Embracing electric cars may salve our conscience, but ditching the devil we know for the one we don’t yet understand could be a well-intentioned move that backfires badly.

Speaking of which: “As more than half a million customers in [the California Bay Area] lost power Wednesday amid a series of planned outages aimed at thwarting wildfires, Tesla owners were confronted with another troubling possibility: their cars running out of juice.”

OH: Intel. analyst leaked top secret info to reporter, as part of ‘romantic’ relationship, feds say.

MSNBC’S MORNING JOE TIES ELIZABETH WARREN’S PREGNANCY STORY TO PAST LIES ON HERITAGE, MICHAEL BROWN.

Meanwhile: ‘Smoke signals have gone up’! CNN ‘analysis’ argues that digging into Elizabeth Warren’s pregnancy story is ‘sexism in the guise of scrutiny.’

It’s the Wright-Free Zone redux.

EXPLAINER: To prevent wildfires, the entire state’s power grid is subject to planned blackouts.

As with most vicious problems, the roots of the state’s power dilemma go back decades. For starters, the state is fire prone. “It’s a place that nature built to burn,” writes fire historian and Arizona State University professor Stephen J. Pyne. Almost all the region’s precipitation falls during the winter. By early summer, the hills are stocked with fuel and tinder-dry. And California’s federal and state lands are chronically undermanaged when it comes to controlled burns and reducing fuel loads. (President Trump evoked chuckles when, visiting the Camp Fire site, he described Finland’s superior forest management practices as “raking and cleaning.” Though inelegantly expressed, his recommendations reflected those of many wildfire experts.)

Then California’s ferocious winds, especially in late summer and fall, disrupt the usual flow of air off the Pacific: huge rivers of hot, bone-dry air from the state’s deserts and mountains rush unstoppably toward the coast. Known as the Santa Ana winds, the gusts can roar at 40 miles per hour or more for days at a time. Imagine a smoldering cigarette butt sitting on a pile of crumpled newspaper and being blasted by a hair drier—for hours on end—and you start to appreciate the havoc a single ember can wreak on the desiccated California landscape.

A wildfire that passes through uninhabited forests and grasslands doesn’t do much permanent damage. In fact, these ecosystems have evolved to benefit from occasional fires. In recent decades, though, California’s wild areas have filled up with people. (Though the media portrayed Paradise as a small town, the mountain community was actually home to 27,000 people. That’s roughly the population of New London, Connecticut) Even big cities bump up against wild country, with subdivisions filling mountain canyons and advancing into brushy deserts. Fire experts call these zones the “wildland-urban interface.” Nearly a third of California homes are built in these hard-to-protect areas.

Many California residents—especially retirees—are drawn to rural areas by the natural beauty. Who wouldn’t want to live in the Sierra foothills? But many also move to escape soaring housing costs in the state’s notoriously anti-development major cities.

And now the people smart enough to leave the cities are having their power switched off. It’s almost like California wants to be rid of smart people.

CHANGE: Yale Law School Establishes Religious-Liberty Clinic.

AN INTRODUCTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IS BACK IN STOCK ON AMAZON: My new book with Randy Barnett has been sold out since its release date. Order a copy today! Or, if you are in a hurry, you can download the E-Book or stream the videos.

UH-HUH: If You Think Elizabeth Warren Is Lying, You’ve Never Been a Woman in the Workplace.

Elizabeth Warren’s path to presidential candidate began with a fateful firing. It’s a story the Democratic senator from Massachusetts has told often on the campaign trail: In 1971, after her first year of teaching as a speech pathologist with the Riverdale Board of Education in New Jersey, Warren got pregnant and was subsequently let go. “By the end of the first year, I was visibly pregnant, and the principal did what principals did in those days: wished me luck, showed me the door, and hired someone else for the job,” Warren said at a town hall in Oakland this past June. Her teaching dreams dashed, Warren went on to law school, professorship, and public service.

But as Warren surges in the polls, people are attempting to contradict her story. Citing records…

Citing records? How uncouth.

Just because some, or even many instances were true, doesn’t mean Warren isn’t lying. And all the evidence suggests that she is.

FROM JEREMY LOTT, a Washington Times review of my The Social Media Upheaval.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Biden campaign blasts New York Times in letter to Dean Baquet.

Earlier:

● Joe Biden rages at reporter who asks him about his son and Ukraine.

● There Is Absolutely Nothing Suspicious And Criminal-Like About Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian Director’s Salary.

● According To Hunter Biden, Joe Biden Lied About Ukraine.

● NBC’s Today Show: My, but Hunter Biden’s business in China is interesting…

● Joe Biden campaign asks networks to stop booking Rudy Giuliani.

● Does This Photo Prove Biden Lied About His Knowledge of Son’s Ukraine Business Dealings?

● Hunter Biden: The Most Comprehensive Timeline.

● Ukraine must investigate Joe Biden’s son, says ex-Ukrainian PM.

● Wherever Joe Biden went, son Hunter cashed in.

● Warren Flustered by Hypothetical Ethics Question on Hunter Biden.

● ‘Well, Son of a Bitch’ : Ukraine Scandal Is About Biden.

● Peter Schweizer On Biden’s Ukraine Dealings — Seven Essential Facts.

● ABC’s Jon Karl on Hunter Biden’s Ukraine Business: “If His Name Was Hunter Smith He Probably Wouldn’t Be Getting Paid.”

A whole lot of Democratic Party operatives with bylines are going to be locked up in Joe’s closet…

OH, THIS’LL WORK: Blizzard accused of disabling authentication to stop users deleting accounts during boycott. “Over the weekend, video game publisher Blizzard banned professional Hearthstone player Ng Wai ‘blitzchung’ Chung from the 2019 Hearthstone Grandmasters Official Competition after he showed support for the Hong Kong protests in an interview. The move was seen as an example of yet another US company bending the knee to China and led to heavy criticism and a mass boycott. Now Blizzard users who are attempting to participate in the boycott by closing their accounts are reporting that Blizzard has disabled all authentication and is preventing them from deleting their accounts.”