CHRISTIAN TOTO: Why TNT Has ‘No Comment’ on Barkin’s Hate.

Off topic, but I did get to spend some quality drinking time with Christian and his bride on New Year’s, and they really are lovely people.

MAXIMUM CHICAGO: “Chicago Seized And Sold Nearly 50,000 Cars Over Tickets Since 2011, Sticking Owners With Debt.” The magic part:

“In 2017 alone, Chicago booted more than 67,000 vehicles for unpaid tickets. In about a third of those cases, the driver couldn’t afford to remove the boot, and the vehicle was later towed to a city impound lot. Of those 20,000 impounded cars, more than 8,000 […] were sold off, with the owners receiving none of the sale proceeds. Instead, the city and its towing contractor pocketed millions of dollars, while residents were left with ticket debt.”

It’s Chinatown, Jake.

THE IRONY METER JUST EXPLODED: “WikiLeaks tells reporters 140 things not to say about Julian Assange.” The best part:

“There is a pervasive climate of inaccurate claims about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, including purposeful fabrications planted in large and otherwise ‘reputable’ media outlets,” Wikileaks said [in] an email sent to media organizations and marked “Confidential legal communication. Not for publication.”

(Italics added).

BRAD TEMPLETON: If you’re a computer nerd, buy a Tesla Model 3. “It’s a car designed by silicon valley computer nerds, to some extent for silicon valley computer nerds.”

WANT: Watch How a New Gun Knocks Drones Out of the Sky.

AND THEN THERE’S THE MOST SUCCESSFUL COVER-UP EVER: Former Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense Jed Babbin lays out a highly persuasive case for the view the Department of Justice and FBI under President Barack Obama and continuing to the present have pulled off the most successful cover-up of a host of serious crimes in American history. All for the twin purposes of protecting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and preventing Donald Trump from occupying the Oval Office.

HMM: “Carculator” tells you how much money you can make renting out your car.

AT AMAZON, save on Software.

Plus, New Year’s savings in Appliances.

SHE’S CERTAINLY TAUGHT ME A THING OR TWO ABOUT WHAT PASSES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION: Wikipedia Calls Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez an ‘Educator.’

YEP: “Once it was the national radio or a TV broadcaster, now it’s the internet that would-be coups and strongmen make sure they control in times of crisis.”

I talked about that in my paper on military coups. But I should note that efforts to crack down on dissenting Internet speech aren’t limited to coups, or to obvious dictatorships.

ABIGAIL SHRIER:  “When Your Daughter Defies Biology:  The Burden of Mothers Whose Children Suffer from ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria.'”

No paywall here.

At some point, a lot of doctors are going to get sued.

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Democrats have had control of the House for less than a week and we are already having a debate over a 70% top rate.

Trump should propose some revenue enhancements of his own if this makes any progress.

MAYBE IT’S TIME FOR AN INSURRECTION:  Portland State Professor Who Exposed “Grievance Studies” Corruption Faces University Discipline.

VIDEO: Singing La Marseillaise, a Yellow Vest Protester Marches Up the Middle of the Champs-Elysées.

JULIETTE OCHIENG: Silenced And Broke. “Some mock as a conspiracy theory the notion of a financial elite gathering to impose its will on the rabble. Meanwhile, theory has become fact.”

FOX LEFT OUT OF DEBATE OVER NEW LOCK ON HENHOUSE DOOR: US ices Iran out of Yemen talks.

THE MEDIA IS LETTING THE ACLU GET AWAY WITH MASSIVE HYPOCRISY: The ACLU has been very active both politically and in litigation in opposing federal and state legislation that in various ways penalizes boycotting Israel. Commentators up and down the progressive left have been relying on the ACLU for the proposition that this legislation is a violation of First Amendment free speech rights.

For the record, the ACLU is misstating various Supreme Court holdings; as Eugene Volokh has explained, as a general rule there is no recognized right to engage in, as opposed to advocating, an economic boycott.

But let’s assume that the ACLU sincerely believes there is, or there should be, such a constitutional right. One would logically expect that ACLU to therefore be on the side of religious bakers, photographers, caterers, and so on, who choose to boycott same-sex weddings despite civil rights laws that require the contrary. In fact, the ACLU not only hasn’t supported the service providers, it has strongly supported government suppression of these boycotts.

But wait, some interlocutors have told me, there’s a difference between supporting antidiscrimination laws protecting Americans from discrimination, and laws protecting a foreign government from discrimination. There may be all sorts of ideological, moral, and practical differences; there are no constitutional differences. (And note that protecting same-sex weddings from discrimination is not quite the same thing as protecting homosexual individuals from discrimination.)

So from a constitutional perspective, either you support the right to boycott in the face of government attempts to protect a class from discrimination, or you don’t. The ACLU, however, wants to have its (same-sex wedding) cake and eat it too: boycotts against disfavored entities (Israel, or the military in FAIR v. Rumsfeld) are constitutionally protected, but boycotts contrary to laws it likes are not. It doesn’t work that way, and certainly won’t under the current Supreme Court. If any reporter that’s quoted the ACLU on the Israel legislation has asked how the ACLU justifies its hypocrisy on the issue of boycotts and the First Amendment, I haven’t seen it.

UPDATE: RELATED: American Thinker: AntiSemitism, BDS, and the ACLU

FROM THE FOLKS AT BOOM: The Future Is Supersonic. Is “make the world a smaller place” a good slogan?