JAMES LILEKS’ OBLIGATORY THANKSGIVING ESSAY:

There have been 105 Thanksgivings at this house. It’s a solid place. There will be a hundred more, as long as the walls and the foundation and the roof endure. This was a young country when the house was built. It is a young country still. May it never grow so old it forgets the humbling lessons of gratitude, and the happy joys of civic rituals.

Today we celebrate no creed, no official birthday, no war’s cessation. We look inward to family and outward to the polity that protects our freedom. All this and pie. God Bless America.

Read the whole thing — and Happy Thankgiving to you and yours!

UPDATE: Be Thankful for the Capitalism That Makes the Abundance Laid Out Before Us Possible.

THIS DOES NOT SURPRISE ME: COVID-19 antibody surveys underestimate infections: study. “These results suggest that serology testing at a single time point is likely to underestimate the number of persons with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, and a negative serologic test result might not reliably exclude prior infection.”

LAURENCE JARVIK: Return of Hillary’s “Inevitability” Campaign…for “Pretender-in-Chief” Joe Biden.

I’M SO OLD, I CAN REMEMBER WHEN CALIFORNIA HAD RELIABLE ELECTRICITY: Southern California Edison considers Thanksgiving power cuts due to wildfire threat.

Related: California Governor Signs Order Banning Sales Of New Gasoline Cars By 2035.

MOST INTERESTING SPACE-WORM NEWS THIS YEAR: Space worm tests show microgravity can alter genes.

THE POWER LINE THANKSGIVING DAY IN PICTURES: Special COVID Edition.

WEIRDLY, FAUCI’S ENDORSEMENT DOESN’T IMPRESS ME: Fauci: ‘People should feel confident’ COVID-19 vaccines safe, effective.

ROGER KIMBALL: Trump does the right thing by pardoning Gen. Flynn.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Researchers link specific gut bacteria to irritable bowel syndrome. “Unlike most other gut bacteria, Brachyspira is in direct contact with the cells [of the intestines] and covers their surface. I was immensely surprised when we kept finding Brachyspira in more and more IBS patients, but not in healthy individuals.”

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Watch: Devout Catholic Joe Biden Does Not Know How To Pronounce Famous Book In Bible.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Staffers Crying Over Jordan Peterson Book Cured By Forcing Them To Read Jordan Peterson Book.

Its publisher’s management might want to peruse the galleys as well:

Related: Woke Publishing Employees Can’t Stand Their Woke Employer Publishing Books They Don’t Like.

Had the employee bothered to read 12 Rules for Life, he — or she or “xi” or “they” or “it” or whatever pronouns he or she prefers to be called — might have found the book sophisticated, scientific, and illuminating. I certainly did.

Peterson’s bestselling book encourages people to take control of their lives, to abandon victimization, and to value the truth. Yes, Peterson disagrees with the radical transgender orthodoxy, and he is notorious for criticizing a law that would force people to refer to one another using their chosen pronouns. Peterson also explains that biological sex is real and that men and women are different in some ways — oh, the horror!

Peterson clearly contradicts transgenderism, but that hardly justifies accusations of “transphobia.” The professor has clearly said he will refer to people by their preferred pronouns when they ask him — he only objects to a government order on speech.

Does this make the professor a heinous “icon of hate speech,” an “icon of transphobia,” or an “icon of white supremacy”? No. If anything, Peterson is an icon of sanity in a world gone increasingly mad.

It seems there is little these triggered publishing company employees need more than to actually read Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life. Luckily, they work at the company that published it! Perhaps the staff can lend them some copies.

Tyler O’Neil’s article is just for our VIP members; please use the discount code LOYALTY if you’ve been thinking of becoming a supporter.

COVERING THE IMPORTANT STORIES: Songs that Changed Music: The Smiths’ ‘How Soon Is Now?’

LATE-NIGHT SCOTUS RULING SAVES NY RELIGIOUS GROUPS FROM ONEROUS COVID RESTRICTIONS.

BYRON YORK: How Republicans crashed Nancy Pelosi’s party.

In the end, Republicans believe they will have 211 seats, although they might have as many as 213. That means Pelosi will have somewhere between 222 and 224 seats. Remember that it takes 218 votes to pass something in the House, and it is clear just how narrow the Democratic majority will be. Pelosi will be able to lose just a handful of her members and still prevail in a party-line vote. Democrats on the ideological fringes will have more power because Pelosi will need their support to pass anything.

Short of an actual GOP takeover of the House, which Republicans believe is coming in 2022, the result left McCarthy and his fellow members encouraged and full of energy. They will have more power to shape legislation and stop measures they view as unacceptable. Pelosi will have to take their position into account in every calculation. McCarthy is still minority leader, but he will be a stronger, more assertive minority leader.

If Republicans are able to keep control of the Senate, the House results mean a President Biden will face the opposition party in control of one house of Congress and his Democratic allies in weakened control of the other. Of course, Republicans wanted to win it all. But as a result of McCarthy’s planning, and the work of GOP strategists, together with the push provided from an ever-present Trump, Republicans are in a strong position to shape the new Washington.

Read the whole thing.

ENTER THE KRAKEN: Sidney Powell Releases the ‘Kraken’ in Georgia with Explosive New Lawsuit.

Defense Attorneys Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and others have filed a lawsuit in Georgia demanding that the results of the 2020 election be set aside because of “massive election fraud” and foreign influence in the election. The lawsuit claims that 96,600 mail-in ballots “were fraudulently cast” and that “136,098 ballots were illegally counted as a result of improper manipulation of the Dominion software.”

Powell, a high-profile attorney who represents former Trump National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn, asks that the governor be enjoined from certifying the election. The 104-page lawsuit claims that Gov. Brian Kemp, Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger, and the chair and members of the Georgia State Elections Board failed to police the alleged fraud, including “multiple violations of Georgia laws, including O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-30(d), 21-2-31, 21-2- 33.1 and §21-2-522, and multiple Constitutional violations, as shown by fact witnesses to specific incidents, multiple expert witnesses and the sheer mathematical impossibilities found in the Georgia 2020 General Election.”

The lawsuit, co-filed with attorney Lin Wood and an Atlanta attorney, asks a judge to set aside the results of the election in a permanent injunction; enjoin elections officials from certifying the election; demands that all voting machines be subjected to forensic assessment; and asks that election officials produce 36 hours of surveillance video of “all rooms used in the voting process at State Farm Arena in Fulton County, GA from 12:00am to 3:00am until 6:00pm on November.”

There’s a copy of the complaint at the link.

Related: Twitter Blocks ‘Potentially Harmful’ Links to Sidney Powell Election Lawsuit. Act of war.

UPDATE: From the comments:

The Left: “There’s no evidence of fraud”

Also the Left: “You’re not allowed to see the claims being made because Hate and Harmful.”

They’re not acting especially confident here.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO’VE JUST TUNED IN, THE PINEDALE SHOPPING MALL HAS JUST BEEN BOMBED WITH LIVE TURKEYS! FILM AT ELEVEN:

NOT ONLY IS 2020 STRANGER THAN WE IMAGINED, IT IS STRANGER THAN WE CAN IMAGINE: Vatican Unveils Avant-Garde 2020 Nativity Scene, and Boy Does Twitter Have Opinions. “The Vatican is about to unveil this year’s Nativity scene. The spark plug angel and Fisher-Price Holy Family design will surely invite conversation. At least the animals appear realistic.”

And while the Vatican is channeling the Museum of Modern Art, Pope Francis has finally condemned Chinese racism: Pope says for first time that China’s Uighurs are ‘persecuted.’

John Paul II left the building a long time ago.

THAT SEEMS FAIR: DePauw U. ranked dead last in massive free speech college rankings survey.

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! CNN: Those Aren’t Biden Gaffes! They Demonstrate His ‘Empathy.’

Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and their coming four year nap will make perfect sense.

GO AHEAD, DISARM THE POLICE. THEN WHO ARE YOU GONNA CALL? Plans to disarm Portland State campus police on hold after too many quit.

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HEY KIDS, WHAT TIME IS IT? It Is Time To Eliminate The Federal Corporate Income Tax.