INSTAPUNDIT READERS HAVE KNOWN THIS FOR MANY MONTHS: Vitamin deficiencies linked to respiratory conditions, including COVID-19. “Increasing vitamins A, E and D through diet changes or supplements reduces a person’s risk for breathing and respiratory conditions, including flu and COVID-19, a study published Tuesday by the journal BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health found. People who consumed recommended amounts of the three key nutrients were less likely to develop the flu, colds, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, the data showed. Research has linked vitamin D, in particular, with boosting immune system function, and being deficient in the nutrient has been found to increase a person’s risk for severe COVID-19.”

Toldja.

TED CRUZ RIPS JACK DORSEY OVER CENSORSHIP OF POST’S HUNTER BIDEN BOMBSHELL:

“Why did Twitter make the decision to censor the New York Post?” he asked.

Replied Dorsey, “We have a hacked materials policy … limiting the spread of materials that are hacked. We didn’t want Twitter to be a distributor of hacked materials. We found that the New York Post, because it showed the direct materials … [and] it was unclear how those were obtained, that it fell under this policy.”

As Cruz pointed out, The Post clearly noted in its reporting that the trove of emails and other personal materials were obtained from a laptop that formerly belonged to Biden, and was abandoned at a Delaware electronics repair shop, becoming the owner’s property under store policy and agreed to in writing by Biden.

He also blasted Dorsey for erring on the side of censorship, even if they had doubts.

“They weren’t hiding what they claimed to be the source,” Cruz said. “Is it your position that Twitter, when you can’t tell the source, blocks press stories?”

Protested Dorsey, “No, not at all. Our team made a fast decision.”

He also noted that policy has since been amended to avoid a similar situation.

But Cruz then pressed on why The Post’s Twitter account remains blocked, two weeks after the ban was rescinded.

“They have to log into their account, which they can do at this minute, delete the original tweet, which fell under our original enforcement actions, and they can tweet the exact same material, the exact same article and it would go through,” Dorsey said.

Regarding that last line, Mollie Hemingway tweets:

#FIGHTFORFIFTEEN: White Castle employees, meet Flippy the Robot. “After allowing Flippy to stage at one of its restaurants, White Castle has announced plans to adopt some of Flippy’s siblings from their creator, Miso Robotics. The restaurant chain will be deploying them in 2021 at ten additional locations to steal jobs the hearts of customers.”

IT’S IMPORTANT TO END THE LEFT’S CULTURE OF IMPUNITY: Leftists Are Physically Attacking Trump Supporters Just Like They Did in 2016.

ROLL ‘EM UP: Feds charge 8 in alleged secret Chinese repatriation squad hunting fugitives in U.S.

Federal authorities unveiled criminal charges Wednesday against eight people who allegedly served as part of a covert Chinese repatriation squad that sought to forcibly return fugitives to the Beijing government.

The suspects, whose mission was allegedly sanctioned by the Peoples Republic of China, worked for more than three years as part of a campaign known as “Operation Fox Hunt” to coerce Chinese nationals living in the United States to return to China where they were wanted for various government offenses, said John Demers, chief of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

Five of the suspects, including a New Jersey private investigator who allegedly assisted with surveillance, were arrested earlier Wednesday and charged as illegal agents of the PRC. The three others are believed to be living in China.

Related: Time to put China on lockdown for its dishonesty amid coronavirus crisis.

Also: Xi Jinping’s China did this: The corrupt, criminal regime wasted 40 days blocking information while it crushed domestic dissent and ensured COVID-19 would become a global pandemic.

SHOCKINGLY, BEING A PROFESSOR IS AN ACTUAL JOB: Faculty Joined A Day Of Action To Protest Racial Inequality. Now 2 Are In Hot Water. Joining a “Scholar’s Strike” isn’t doing your job. It’s not even being on strike.

Also, how self-important do you have to be to think that if you as an associate professor of sociology cancel a class, it will change the world? Even if every associate professor of sociology canceled a class, it would change the world only very little, and then mostly for the better.

SPACE: SpaceX begins public beta testing of Starlink constellation at $99 a month. “The email is brief, first detailing what beta users can expect from the initial Starlink system. ‘Expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system,’ the email reads. ‘There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all.’ SpaceX claims in the email that latency and data speeds will improve as the company launches more satellites and installs more ground stations to receive signals from the satellites. The company also notes it will continue to update its networking software and expects latency to decrease to between 16ms and 19ms by 2021.”

MY GOD, IT’S FULL OF STARS. Question asked and answered: What do 10 million stars look like?

WELL, TRUMP LIKES THE SUBURBS AND MOMS, WHILE THE DEMOCRATS DON’T, SO THERE’S THAT: My ‘suburban mom’ demographic is supposedly all in for Biden. But I’m voting for Trump.. “In 2016, I took a chance and cautiously voted for Donald Trump based on his promises. In 2020, I’m proud to vote for him and his vision of America.”

WHO ON BIDEN’S STAFF CORRECTS HIS GAFFES? Another illustration of why the Issues & Insights editorial page is so appealing. “Biden’s staff, which includes much of the media, must by now be weary of having to cover his repeated stumbles and descents into a momentary, but growing, madness. In only the last year, Biden:” Go here for the lengthy list.

HMM: Health Care Workers Help Drive Gun Surge, New Study Says. “Gun buying also rises among minorities amid pandemic.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. With Biden Corruption, Democrats Are Once Again Reaping The Consequences Of Their Gentle Primary. In a healthy Democratic Party, Joe Biden’s primary opponents would have cared about his family’s documented habit of trading on their powerful last name.

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Baltimore Museum of Art Loses $50 Million Planned Gift Over Deaccession.

The furor over the Baltimore Museum of Art’s (BMA) deaccessioning of three major works—by Brice Marden, Clyfford Still, and Andy Warhol—continues, with two former board chairs announcing the withdrawal of planned gifts totaling $50 million, and two artists resigning from the institution’s board of trustees.

Stiles Colwill and Charles Newhall III said that they would cancel their pledged gifts, of $20 million and $30 million, respectively, in protest of the sales, with Newhall additionally resigning as honorary trustee. Colwill, whose planned gift comprised the entire value of his estate, told The Art Newspaperhe had made the decision to cancel the gift a year ago “when it became clear to me that under the leadership of [director] Christopher Bedford the BMA was no longer trustworthy to receive this bequest,” and that “[i]t was only in the past weeks that I was, quite sadly, publicly proven right about the BMA’s current leadership. Thus I allowed word of my decision along with that of Mr. Charles Newhall . . . to [be] announced.” Newhall announced the retraction of his own gift along with his resignation in an October 15 letter and called for “any public display” associated with his family’s previous $5 million gifts to be removed from the institution.

Bedford and current board chair Clair Zamoiski Segal contended that Colwill and Newhall’s planned contributions “have not been recorded with the museum as gifts and are not part of the museum’s current budgeting,” further adding that the cancellations are “not evidence that donors are rescinding gifts to the museum.”

Artists Amy Sherald and Adam Pendleton additionally resigned from the BMA’s board of trustees last week, both citing a lack of time to attend to their necessary duties with the organiziation, and Pendleton saying he had been “blindsided” by the controversy attending the deaccessioning.

Flashback: Baltimore Will Have Bought-a-Less: The City’s Museum of Art Announces it Won’t Buy Any Works if They’re Made by Men.

SAY ANYTHING: Mistake or Messaging? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Say MILLIONS of Americans Died From COVID-19.

MAINE SENATE NOW A DEAD-HEAT: Latest results from Colby College Poll has Democrat Gideon with a three-point margin over Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), well within the margin of error. Think Collins wishes now that Trump would have a rally in Maine?

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: This Bud’s for You, Racist.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: When did beer become racist?

Answer: When it became profitable for an otherwise-useless white “scholar” to peddle a book claiming it is.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• Joe Biden’s worst speech ever.
• Hunter Biden’s most damning recording ever — and there’s no sex.
• The perfect garnish for your Bloody Mary: Revealed!

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

BOBULINSKI BOMBSHELL: The Bidens are ‘Compromised’ and Lying About Joe’s Knowledge of Hunter’s Deals With China.

And from Roger Kimball: Tony Bobulinski and implausible deniability. He is a no-nonsense, forthright guy who is angry and determined to clear his name:

Bobulinski appeared on the scene as a complainant only because Adam Schiff decided to go on the record disparaging him as a Russian agent or source of Russian disinformation. As a patriotic American, Bobulinski objected and demand a retraction. No retraction was forthcoming, so he went to the press. ‘People were accusing my family of treason after I served this country and defended this country,’ he said. ‘I feel I have a patriotic duty to this country and to every American citizen.’

Most of the press, being wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic National Committee, violently disparaged his revelations where they did not studiously ignore them. As of early this morning, a search for ‘Bobulinski’ on the CNN site produced a search-not-found result. How odd!

As of the time of this post, Bobulinski’s name still produces no results in CNN’s search engine:

As Andy McCarthy tweets, “What a time to be in journalism: Between Bobulinski and the Biden corruption scandal, rioting in our cities, a new Supreme Court justice’s first full day, and peace breaking out in the Middle East, has there ever been so much to *not* cover!?!”

LEFTISM IS BEST UNDERSTOOD AS A NEVERENDING POWER-GRAB:

ONLY BIGOTS BELIEVE WHAT BARACK OBAMA AND HILLARY CLINTON BELIEVED LESS THAN A DECADE AGO: High school investigates coach for tweet criticizing gay marriage.

WELL, YES: Seth Barrett Tillman: It was never about RACE—It was always about CLASS.

AL PERROTTA: The Landslide America Will Be Glad to Have.

Oh, I could point to little signs. Like Trump building a lead in Florida. Or even The New York Times reporting that Trump is polling about 10 points better in Philadelphia than he did in 2016, which would all but guarantee him a win in Pennsylvania. Or his stunning rise among Blacks and Latinos.

I could point to more Trump supporters showing up at Biden rallies than Biden supporters, or wild Trump car rallies in places where having a GOP sticker on your car used to guarantee your car getting keyed. I could point to the enthusiasm gap, which is massive.

Or Kamala Harris blowing her big audition, voters understanding she is the real candidate in this election, and going, “No, thank you!” Or the common sense observation that few people will stand for line in hours just to vote against Trump.

I could point to the fact that Donald Trump is actually out there working to earn votes while Biden is, well, barely trying.

Or that Biden thinks he’s running for Senate and running against George Bush … or George Lopez … or George Jetson. George someone.

I could point to that, but no, I am talking about a sense. A feeling in my bones that a spirit of division and rancor is being broken. That something’s changed in recent weeks. Almost overnight.

Read the whole thing, which is about much more than just a single election.

Related: Chins Up, Buckaroos: Donald Trump Is Going to Win.

That one was originally just for our VIP members, but today I’ve unlocked it for everyone.

Still, don’t get cocky.

XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: China’s Next ‘5-Year Plan’ Likely to Increase Animosity Between Washington and Beijing. “China’s problem, which often turns into a problem for Washington, is Beijing’s consistent double-standards. China wants to be taken seriously on the world stage as a major power, yet expects to be treated in environmental and trade terms as a ‘developing country,’ subject to far more lax standards and requirements.”

CUOMO SHAKES DOWN STATE CONTRACTORS: Open the Books strikes again, this time finding hundreds of instances where New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo sought millions of dollars campaign contractors from firms providing goods and services to state government. You wanna play in New York? You gotta pay, know what I mean?

Question: Why doesn’t somebody endow an annual Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant Award to recognize the superb work of Open the Books, Judicial Watch and other transparency in government advocates?