WELL, THAT’S LIZ WARREN FOR YOU:

SO VERY SUSPICIOUSLY, there was a mass-flagging of negative comments about the new, crappy, Star Wars movie in this thread, leaving only 3 positive ones. I went back and approved the flagged comments. I wonder if I should consider suing Disney for wasting my time?

THE 21st CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: WashPost: Astrology Is ‘Self-Care’ for Millennials.

Earlier: The Rise of Progressive Occultism — Or why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez felt compelled to share her birth chart.

Although “progressive occultism” isn’t an entirely new development — Sally Quinn, then-married to Washington Post maximum editor Ben Bradlee, was playing with “Ouija boards, astrological charts, palm reading, talismans,” and casting spells she believed to be lethal since the late 1960s.

OPEN THREAD: Enjoy it.

ASHE SCHOW: Senate Report: U.S. Taxpayers Have Unwittingly Funded China’s Economy And Military For Decades.

ANDREW MORRISS REVIEWS “THE LAUNDROMAT.” It’s unrealistic, he says, but I like this:

The film’s conclusion (spoiler alert, but it is really no surprise) is that Nevis, Panama, and Delaware (and presumably other similar places) are sinkholes of corruption and fraud. Streep ends the film by walking out of the Mossack Fonseca office and removing the costume that enabled her to play the role of one of the firm’s employees while reciting part of the (still unknown) Panama Papers leaker’s “manifesto”, morphing into Ellen. She then takes off a wig and transforms herself into Meryl Streep, to deliver a final lecture on the immorality of tax avoidance, shell companies, etc. Along the way, she admits the film director and producer themselves have Delaware companies, which they don’t appear to be giving up.

Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds makes a regular call to “repeal the Hollywood tax cuts.” As Reynolds notes, our moral betters in Hollywood regularly lecture the rest of us about the evils of tax avoidance while engaged in some of the most egregious tax and accounting gimmicks to avoid taxes. I’m not holding my breath waiting for Hollywood’s elite to practice what they preach or get back to making movies that actually entertain, but that would be a happy ending.

That’s not the kind of happy ending Hollywood demands.

SQUAD GOALS: SPLC-Inspired Amazon Bans Pro-Israel PJTN After It Attacks Ilhan Omar.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Muslim AK-47s and Bombings Turn Sweden Into War Zone.

WEIRD HOW UNDER TRUMP’S “BUNGLING” FOREIGN POLICY, WE’RE SEEING THINGS IN THE MIDEAST THAT WERE UNIMAGINABLE BEFORE: A Groundbreaking Arab Initiative to Repudiate BDS.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘Richard Jewell’ Paints Press as ‘Reckless, Corrupt, Immoral.’ “Yes, the events in the film took place more than 20 years ago, but once again Eastwood gets the zeitgeist better than his peers. While they stumble over repeated Fox News films and fawning media portraits, he’s showcasing what’s happening in the media today. Right now. Just this week we saw both AFP and Reuters ‘disappear’ a news story because if made President Barack Obama, not President Donald Trump, look bad.”

WELL: Will Hurd, anti-Trump Republican, says he sees no evidence of bribery, extortion.

An outspoken anti-Trump Republican lawmaker said Thursday he hasn’t seen any evidence the president committed bribery or extortion, slamming the House Democrats’ impeachment probe.

Rep. Will Hurd, Texas Republican, who announced his retirement earlier this year and who has continuously been a critic of President Trump, said although he has disagreed with how the president and his administration have carried out foreign policy with Ukraine, he doesn’t support the inquiry process.

Mr. Hurd said he would like, as other Republicans have said, to hear from Hunter Biden, who worked for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma during his father’s service as vice president, as well as the whistleblower.

“An impeachable offense should be compelling,” he said during Thursday’s hearing. “It’s not something to be rushed or taken lightly. I have not heard evidence proving the president committed bribery or extortion.”

He is, however, indisputably guilty of defeating Hillary.

Related: Ken Starr: ‘This is Impeachment in Search of a Rationale.’ “Starr agued that Democrats are using impeachment as a ‘tool of expressing’ their ‘disapprobation of a controversial president.'” Trump’s not that controversial. 90% of Republicans, and an increasing number of independents, support him. He’s just highly disliked by excitable Dems and their media satraps.

MAKE AMERICA DRINK AGAIN: Join Kruiser & VodkaPundit for a Video Live Chat.

WHEN STOPPING THE TURKS IS “TOO CONTROVERSIAL” FOR THE AUSTRIANS: King Sobieski monument erected in Kraków after Vienna says it’s too controversial. Will they stop selling croissants, too?

AT AMAZON, save in Kitchen and Dining.

Plus, save on Office and School Supplies.

WELL: Exclusive: FBI official under investigation after allegedly altering document in 2016 Russia probe. “The possibility of a substantive change to an investigative document is likely to fuel accusations from President Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI committed wrongdoing in its investigation of connections between Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign.” Well, that’s because it looks very much as if it did.

YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME: Shot to the Groin Offers Infertility to Men for 13 Years.

BAN ALL THE HISTORY! So Long, Sacagawea. “The City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia has voted to remove a statue of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and Sacagawea, their Shoshone interpreter, from a street in the city.”

As Robert Heinlein has been quoted as saying, “A generation that doesn’t know history has no past; and no future.” And that’s just the way the “Start from zero” left likes it.

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF: Trump Lays Down the Law on Pardoned SEAL: ‘The Navy Will NOT Be Taking Away Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin.’ Now he should name him a White House military aide.

UPDATE: Related: Most decorated soldier of Vietnam War had almost as many Article 15s as he did medals.

21ST CENTURY LEGAL PROBLEMS: Barred from Participating in Public High School Graduation for Using “Nigger” in a Tweet?

UNION CITY BLUES: New Jersey Takes A Swipe At The Gig Economy With New Independent Contractor Bill.

Earlier: California Bill Threatens to Destroy Uber, Lyft, and the Gig Economy.

OUT ON A LIMB: It’s Okay Not to Care About All This Impeachment Stuff.

HE’S RIGHT ON THIS: Wilfred Reilly’s Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War is worth reading. I speak to plenty of people on the left side of the political spectrum. They are adamant that hoaxes are rare … but they are not right.  The fact that they persist in saying so (and/or believing so) is part of the problem.

(For the “Cliff Notes” version, see my dissenting statement in the recent report of Commission on Civil Rights. I cite Reilly there.)

MORE FALLOUT FROM THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN MEGA-SCANDAL: Victoria’s Secret fashion show officially canned after outrage.

Last year, Ed Razek, VS’s former chief marketing officer, made offensive comments to Vogue.com, saying that there was “no room” for plus-size models on their runway and that he would not cast transgender models.

And this summer, it was discovered that Leslie Wexner, CEO of L Brands, was a close friend of disgraced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein used Wexner’s link to Victoria’s Secret to recruit young women by promising them modeling jobs with the brand.

Ultimately, with the brand’s revenue declining quarter by quarter and changing societal ideas of what’s sexy, Victoria’s Secret has been in trouble for quite some time.

Well, these things happen when the Sexual Revolution morphs into the French Revolution.

A BOLD CLAIM: Women can make children, but only men can make men. And by “bold claim,” I mean “conventional wisdom a few decades ago, but outright heresy today.”

ADVERSARY TECHNOLOGY: Google Confirms Android Camera Security Threat: ‘Hundreds Of Millions’ Of Users Affected. As I’ve noted before, the trouble with digital devices is that you can never be 100% sure who they’re actually working for.