WHY HAS THE COMIC BOOK WORLD, LIKE THE SPORTS WORLD, BECOME THE DOMAIN OF LEFTY WUSSES WHO SUCK UP TO CHINA? DC Comics deletes Batman poster after China claims it’s pro-Hong Kong.

IF YOU GO CARRYING PICTURES OF CHAIRMAN MAO, YOU AIN’T GOING TO MAKE IT WITH ANYONE ANYHOW: Michael Bloomberg’s Chinese appeasement.

But Bloomberg is not alone, not even in the Democratic field, recall Joe Biden’s ‘c’mon man’, moment in his dismissal of the China threat…Few have recognized what the regime is. During Xi’s rule, China has imprisoned two million Uighurs and other Muslims in China’s internment camps. These victims are harassed, mistreated, tortured and targets for ‘thought-transformation’ to ensure their loyalty to the CCP. Tens of millions of Tibetans, Chinese Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and others have been oppressed. Xi has suppressed the democracy movement in Hong Kong, whose supporters have been brutally attacked, injured and killed by police. China has expanded territorial control in the South China Sea, flouted international law when the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled against China, accelerated Chinese prodigious military expansion and labored to modernize it to become a formidable conventional, cyber, and nuclear force. Xi abandoned precedent and proclaimed that he would serve more than two terms, and that ‘Xi Jinping thought’ was the equal of Mao’s, the founder of the PRC, and Deng’s, its savior. Xi’s megalomania is unalloyed and unchecked. His regime poses the greatest strategic threat to the interests of the United States and its allies from Europe to the Indo-Pacific.

Presumably, Bloomberg admires them as the ultimate nanny state.

OUTLAW NARWHAL TUSKS AND ONLY OUTLAWS WILL CARRY THEM: Good Guy With Narwhal Tusk Foils Jihadist’s London Bridge Attack.

LIFE AMONG THE SLEAZY: “Kessler’s tale was enough to hook the two lawyers, the famed litigator David Boies and his friend John Stanley Pottinger. If Kessler was authentic, his videos would arm them with immense leverage over some very important people.”

Kessler was a liar, and he wouldn’t expose any sexual abuse. But he would reveal something else: The extraordinary, at times deceitful measures elite lawyers deployed in an effort to get evidence that could be used to win lucrative settlements — and keep misconduct hidden, allowing perpetrators to abuse again.

Mr. Boies has publicly decried such secret deals as “rich man’s justice,” a way that powerful men buy their way out of legal and reputational jeopardy. This is how it works.

David Boies comes off very badly here. But the real question to me is, why is the NYT throwing Boies, a reliable lefty tool, under the bus right now? While exonerating Alan Dershowitz?

BACK TO THE FUTURE: Treating antibiotic-resistant infections with metals.

BRYAN PRESTON: The Mandalorian Is on Track to Be the Best Star Wars in Ages.

And possibly serving up the next Democrat presidential nominee: “Baby Yoda, the juggernaut character from Disney+’s Star Wars series ‘The Mandalorian,’ is driving almost twice as many average social media interactions on news stories about it as any 2020 Democrat, according to data from NewsWhip exclusively provided to Axios.”

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LAYERS AND LAYERS OF FACT-CHECKERS AND EDITORS: Newsweek fires reporter who published inaccurate story on Trump’s Thanksgiving Day plans. “‘Newsweek investigated the failures that led to the publication of the inaccurate report that President Trump spent Thanksgiving tweeting and golfing rather than visiting troops in Afghanistan,’ a Newsweek representative told the Washington Examiner. ‘The story has been corrected, and the journalist responsible has been terminated. We will continue to review our processes and, if required, take further action.’”

Tellingly, no word that the editor who published the story is also being sacked.

I AGREE: Opinion: Emergency Rooms Shouldn’t Be Parking Lots For Patients. “On a good day in the emergency room where we work, patients who need to be admitted to the hospital might expect to wait four or five hours, including evaluation and treatment, before they are sent upstairs to a ready bed. On a bad day, ER patients might wait two or three times as long, and sometimes much longer. Recently, one of us cared for a bedridden patient with chest pain who spent 47 hours in an ER hallway before a spot became available in the cardiac unit.”

REPUBLICANS POUNCE! AP Claims GOP ‘Wielding Impeachment as Offensive Weapon’ as Democrats ‘Play Defense.’

HMM: The biological basis of economic behavior: How the brain perceives value and reward.

JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: ‘Forget the Bigot in the Pick-up Truck, Biggest Impediment to his Career was Modern-Day Liberals.’

ABC News was offered a preview of a forthcoming documentary about the life of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The film, produced by conservative filmmaker Michael Pack and Manifold Productions is scheduled for theatrical release in early 2020. The documentary is entitled, “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.”

ABC reports Thomas saying, “I felt as though in my life I had been looking at the wrong people as the people who would be problematic toward me. We were told that, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be the bigot in the pickup truck; it’s gonna be the Klansmen; it’s gonna be the rural sheriff… But it turned out that through all of that, ultimately the biggest impediment was the modern day liberal. They were the ones who would discount all those things because they have one issue or because they have the power to caricature you.”

So Democrats, then and now, in other words.

AT AMAZON, holiday deals in Tools & Home Improvement.

NO. GO AWAY. CDC: Earliest start to flu season in 10 years.

THIS IS CNN: “As Americans sit glued to impeachment hearings centered on allegations of bribery and self-interest over country, I can’t help but be emotional myself when I think about the Carters’ specific brand of patriotism and the fear that we may never see another president and first lady like them again.”

Only if America is very, very lucky. (Though the above quote is quite a tacit insult of Obama’s presidency.)

On the other hand, even history’s greatest monster can get something right. “As Americans sit glued to impeachment hearings,” here’s a flashback to last year: Jimmy Carter Believes That Democrats Shouldn’t Pursue Impeachment.

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: 5 Impressive Ways Criminals Use Wireless Signals to Steal Everything—Even Your Car.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, Y’ALL: One Dallas man was the key to opening America to Monty Python, and John Cleese hasn’t forgotten him.

HE’S REALLY TAKING THE CHANCES OF AN NFL COMEBACK REMARKABLY SERIOUSLY: Kaepernick Trashes America On ‘Unthanksgiving Day’ After Failing To Garner NFL Interest.

Related: Kaepernick’s Workout May Have Yielded a Tryout, Just Not for Him. “According to broadcaster and NFL reporter Howard Balzer, one of those players who Kaepernick threw to, Jordan Veasy, was part of a group of players the Browns brought in for a tryout on Monday.”

PROBABLY THE BIGGEST ECONOMIC AND FOREIGN POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY STORY OF THE YEAR: U.S. Posts First Month in 70 Years as a Net Petroleum Exporter. Thanks, frackers!

But beware the Putin puppets: “some Democratic contenders for the White House have called for a ban on fracking.”

PENTAGON TELLS BUSH: CLIMATE CHANGE WILL DESTROY US. Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong.

(Classical reference in headline.)

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Tryptophan Hangover Edition.

HA!  THIS EXPLAINS A LOT: But what explains all the other candidates?

WEAK HAND: Beijing’s threats over bill supporting Hong Kong ’laughable,’ China expert says.