QUESTION ASKED: Who would want to be Joe Biden’s attorney general?

Whoever Biden nominates will face blunt questions about these issues from the Senate Judiciary Committee and will undoubtedly pledge to leave prosecutorial decisions about the Bidens to career professionals, not political appointees. If the nominee served in the Obama-era DoJ, he or she will have to explain the department’s role in the Russia collusion investigation and FISA-abuse scandals as well. Those questions will be much harsher if Republicans control the Senate after the Georgia runoffs.

Earlier: Perdue and Loeffler edge into lead in Georgia, ‘should’ win both. Don’t get cocky, to coin an Instaphrase.

GOOD: Enzyme discovery can help rein in blood vessels that fuel cancer.

RUSSIA! RUSSIA! RUSSIA! When Finally Asked About Hunter, Joe Biden Retreats To Debunked Russian Disinformation Conspiracy Theory.

THIS HASN’T BEEN A GREAT YEAR FOR MODELS: Model predicts where Lyme disease-carrying ticks will develop.

COVERING THE IMPORTANT HISTORY: Getting It Right About the New York Sun’s “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

GETTING WOKE, GOING BROKE? Can Fox News Turn Things Around?

‘I CAN’T BELIEVE HE WOULD RUN ME OVER!’ Warnock’s Wife Says GA Dem Senate Candidate ‘Crossed the Line’ In Newly Released Police Vid.

It’s a bombshell allegation, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is all over it — with a pillow, as Iowahawk would say:

Evergreen:

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Confused or Dishonest? Biden Claims Hunter Stories Are ‘Russian Disinformation,’ Calls Reporter a Weird Name for Asking About Them.

FASTER, PLEASE: Ted Cruz, Preserving Trump Legacy, Heads Off Biden At The Pass On Rejoining Iran Deal, Paris Climate Accords. Cruz, “taking heed of Joe Biden’s public pronouncements indicating he would rejoin the Paris Agreement and rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, sent a letter to President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that would head Biden off at the pass, asking Trump to submit the deals as treaties, thus forcing any such actions by Biden to be submitted to the Senate for approval.”

TABLES TURNED: Detroit Sues Black Lives Matter Group for ‘Civil Conspiracy’ to Riot and Attack Police.

JAMES BOVARD: 11th-hour COVID-19 relief deal proves again that Congress is unfit to govern.

After the pork-ridden “stimulus” bill of over a decade ago, the Insta-Dad commented that the political class had just figured out that the federal government could borrow a lot more money than they had thought, and that this was likely to end badly.

ONE HAND WASHES THE OTHER: CA Dem Who Pushed Plum Contract to Biden-Linked Firm Tapped for Senate Seat.

HIGHER EDUCATION’S JACKBOOTED THUGS: Professors face firing for criticizing funding of ‘social justice’ activities at public college.

SCIENCE! Fitness Classes Are All but Banned in DC Over Baseless COVID-19 Fears.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: New Mexico walks back ‘free’ college tuition promise, can no longer afford it.

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KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: We Need a Vaccine to Save Us From Bipartisan ‘Relief’ Bills. “There’s the thing — all of the media chatter about this has been referring to it as a COVID relief bill. Yes, we’re all aware that this is how these spending bills get done. That’s the problem though, isn’t it? This little pork dance just gets worse with each new spending bill. Ninety-nine percent of the people who get elected to the House or Senate immediately become afflicted with brain damage that renders them incapable of understanding the meaning of ‘fiscal responsibility’.”

ASHEVILLE ON THE SURFACE: The U.S. Navy fast-attack submarine USS Asheville steams off the coast of Guam during a photo exercise with the French Navy’s nuclear powered submarine FS Émeraude. As the caption says, FS Émeraude is not pictured. The two subs were practicing what the Navy calls “high end maritime skills.”

“High end” translates as a war with a peer or near-peer adversary. This recent column, The Navy’s Robot War in the South China Sea, discusses a fleet battle problem designed to test unmanned combat systems and integrate them with manned warships.

…for years, USVs (unmanned surface vessels) and UUVs (unmanned underwater vessels) have served the Navy well in jobs like sweeping mines, anti-submarine warfare and intelligence gathering.

But now the Navy is experimenting with more complex unmanned systems. A sub like the Asheville could deploy with its own squadron of autonomous and semi-autonomous USVs and UUVs. Here’s a photo of an early version of a UUV (circa 2012). This is a 2016 photo of an experimental USV, the Sea Hunter. The caption notes it was a DARPA program.

The 2021 fleet battle problem will be held somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, but “no matter where the Navy conducts the exercise, the target audience and target adversary is China.” Read the entire column.

UPDATE: An article on unmanned aerial vehicles that are disguised as birds. The air is already a domain of drone and robot warfare. Jim Dunnigan wrote it last night and I’m just now reading it. He mentions the “silence” (low noise signature) and “invisibility” (low visibility) of the UAVs. The Navy wants to deploy unmanned vessels with these characteristics. For that matter, manned vessels as well. Submariners understand — low noise signatures and hiding are the submariners’ game.

JOEL KOTKIN: Peak Progressive?

In the minds of most progressives, as well as some horrified conservatives, California is the harbinger of America’s future. Governor Gavin Newsom sees his state as a model, claiming California is “the envy of the world” and the great bastion of social justice. “Unlike the Washington plutocracy,” he boasts, “California isn’t satisfied serving a powerful few on one side of the velvet rope.”

Yet it is ever more clear to ever more Californians that our state is becoming exactly the vast gated community Newsom warns about. As Ali Modarres showed in “The Demographic Transformation of California” (2003), the “shared prosperity” of the Pat Brown years were based on a broad-based economy spanning the gamut from agriculture and oil to aerospace and finance, software, and basic manufacturing. In contrast, the Newsom progressive model is built largely around one industry—high tech—which provides increasingly little opportunity for most Californians, and now shows disturbing signs of moving elsewhere.

Current progressive policies are chasing key companies out of the state—including, just within the last week, tech giants Tesla, Hewlett Packard Enterprises, and Oracle, all of which are heading to Texas. But the real problem lies in the state’s fading appeal to outsiders. It is losing domestic migrants and, increasingly, losing appeal to immigrants as well. California retains many of its great assets—a huge concentration of technical talent, a robust grassroots economy, unmatched physical beauty, and a remarkably pleasant climate—but these are being increasingly squandered. The question now is whether Californians will challenge the status quo.

Yes, it is.

BELIEVE ALL WOMEN: Warnock’s wife says she’s been trying to hide his behavior ‘for a long time’ in police bodycam video: The Democratic Senate candidate is ‘a great actor,’ Ouleye Ndoye told police in March.

Oulèye Ndoye, the now-ex-wife of Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock, told police officers following a March dispute in Atlanta that he is a “great actor” and that she’s been trying to hide his behavior from the public for “a long time,” according to newly aired bodycam footage.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired footage of the incident late Tuesday, which showed Ms. Ndoye tearfully telling a police officer: “This man’s running for United States Senate, and all he cares about right now is his reputation. I work at the mayor’s office. This is a big problem. I’ve been trying to be very quiet about the way that he is for the sake of my kids and his reputation. I’ve been trying to keep the way that he acts under wraps for a long time, and today he crossed the line,” she continued in the video. “So that is what is going on here. And he’s a great actor. He is phenomenal at putting on a really good show.”

Eh, it’s not that great a show. But imagine the show the press would be putting on if this were David Perdue.

SMALL VICTORIES: I Moved From Locked-Down Virginia To Open Florida, And Faces Came Back To Life.