I’M SO OLD, I CAN REMEMBER WHEN TEHRAN WAS BROKE AND BOXED IN: Israel Says Iran Preparing to Enrich Uranium to Weapons-Grade Level.

TOP SELLER: LifeStraw Personal Water Filter for Hiking, Camping, Travel, and Emergency Preparedness, 1 Pack, Blue. #CommissionEarned

JOE BIDEN’S RETURN TO GOOD GOVERNANCE: Amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants in Democrats’ reconciliation bill could fail in Senate. “The Congressional Budget Office projects that more than 6.5 million illegal immigrants would receive legal status or a path to citizenship as a result of the legislation in its current form.”

Plus: “Democrats are also seeking to drop the requirement that a child’s Social Security number is needed for parents to collect the child tax credit of up to $3,600 per child.”

AWAKENING A SLEEPING GIANT – ALUMNI. From today’s Wall Street Journal, probably paywalled (but very important), a story about alumni organizing to take their campuses back from the censors.

Two years ago Cornell University asked a California real-estate developer and longtime donor for a seven-figure contribution.

Carl Neuss didn’t write the check immediately, saying he was worried about what he saw as liberal indoctrination on campus and declining tolerance toward competing viewpoints.

To allay Mr. Neuss’s concerns, the development office introduced him to some politically moderate professors, he said. The attempt backfired. The professors, he said, told him they felt humiliated by the diversity training they were required to attend and perpetually afraid they would say something factual—but impolitic.

Cornell has 1,695 faculty members and this was its best foot forward on free speech to an important donor. That speaks volumes. Later in the story:

In 2018, alumni at Washington and Lee University in Virginia launched an organization called the Generals Redoubt after they felt the school began disassociating itself from President George Washington—who endowed the school, and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, a former school president. Both men owned slaves. …

Washington and Lee President Will Dudley said the debate has placed universities unfairly in the crossfire.

“We’re living in an environment where people on both sides, right and left, are engaged in a culture war and they want to use universities,” he said. “I don’t find that beneficial to our mission and I’m not interested in being a participant in it.”

Universities have been waging a one-way culture war on free speech, due process, and other fundamental rights (along with many other things) for decades. They don’t get to pretend they’re not part of it when the other side finally starts firing back.

And if you’re an alumnus who wants to join the movement, please, take a moment to join FIRE’s (nascent) Alumni Network or reach out to the good folks at the Alumni Free Speech Alliance so we can put you in touch with like-minded folks from your own alma mater. 20 groups are out there already, and there is interest from many more.

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE: Maskless Joe Biden Caught Violating Mandates (Again).

“The president was seen inside Murray’s Toggery Shop on the island of Nantucket Saturday with his mask around his neck and not covering his mouth despite a visible sign outside the door instructing patrons to wear a mask,” Fox News reports. “According to the White House press pool, Biden walked out of the shop at 4:45 p.m. with his mask down and drinking what appeared to be a milkshake.” (The store’s sign doesn’t say “unless you’re drinking.” It says to wear a mask.)

In the still frame shown above, you can clearly see the president maskless while others inside are wearing masks—including a young child almost certainly at far less risk from COVID-19 than Biden.

This isn’t Biden’s first time flouting COVID-19 mask requirements. In October, the president and his wife violated Washington, DC’s mask mandate when visiting the posh Georgetown restaurant Fiola Mare. Video shows them walking through the restaurant maskless while staff clad in black masks surround them.

The Bidens are, unfortunately, no outliers. Literally dozens of politicians have been caught violating their own pandemic policies and mask mandates. So, too, media figures that have advocated mask mandates don’t always practice what they preach, as recently exposed by FEE’s Jack Elbaum.

In 2020, as mass urban riots were cheered on by hospital employees who only a month prior urged us all to lockdown and “social distance,” it was obvious that COVID was smart enough to avoid Democrats, so such a maskless Joe Biden was fine. Then came the superspreader event a few months ago that was Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard birthday party. Given Kamala’s poll numbers, I hope (P)resident Biden’s handlers are looking out for him.

I HOPE SO: Can this DIY project send a crewed rocket to space?

ENDORSED — NUKE THE ENTIRE SITE FROM ORBIT; IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO BE SURE: With Kamala Harris looking unelectable, the Democrats are considering the nuclear option.

AJ KAUFMAN: Does Kevin McCarthy Have What It Takes to Be Speaker?

FASTER, PLEASE: Heart repair and regeneration after a heart attack: A review.

FIGHT THE NARRATIVE: No, inflation is not ‘good for you.’

“Inflation is good for you!” proclaims a headline from the Intercept. “Inflation is bad for the 1 percent but helps out almost everyone else,” the article claims.

Inflation “may be a good sign,” agrees New York Times business writer Jeanna Smialek. “Don’t panic” about inflation, says economist Paul Krugman.

Krugman believes that recent price increases are only temporary, but why would anyone think that inflation is a good thing? The Intercept article points out that, if you have a lot of debt, inflation will pay part of that debt for you. But the article implies that the 1 percent are all creditors while the other 99 percent are all debtors, neither of which are true.

If you foolishly borrowed $35,000 to get a master’s degree in puppeteering, then you might welcome inflation. The same is true if you are a transit agency that borrowed $2 billion to build light rail. But if you pay off your credit cards in full each month, rent your home, and maybe hope to buy a house someday, inflation is not your friend.

The worst part of inflation is that central banks respond to it by raising interest rates, which raises the price of housing, cars, or anything else that people buy on credit. The Intercept article claims this is an evil conspiracy by the 1 percent to keep everyone else poor. Instead, the article argues, we should just let inflation run wild.

Who you gonna believe, The Intercept or your own lyin’ bank statement?

TRYING NOT TO SEE THE BLUE HADES: Pre-Inca mummy found in Peru with hands covering its face.

BIDEN STANDS UP FOR CHINA: Top Biden Staffer Led ‘All Expenses Paid’ China Trip Sponsored By Communist Influence Group.

Laurence Wilson – a senior aide to President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra – accepted a trip to China sponsored by a leading Chinese Communist Party-linked propaganda group flagged by for its efforts to coerce American leaders to “take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing,” The National Pulse can reveal.

Wilson – who currently serves as the Scheduling & Advance Representative to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary – previously worked as the National Advance Lead on Biden’s presidential campaign.

Posts unearthed from Wilson’s social media accounts reveal the Biden official participated in a 2015 delegation to China sponsored by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) as an advisor to a cohort of college students.

CUSEF was founded by the Vice-Chairman of the “highest-ranking entity overseeing” China’s United Front, which the U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission notes the country weaponizes “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing.”

Related: Joe Biden’s son helped China get control over vast cobalt mine in Africa: Report.

Earlier:

● Biden Infrastructure Czar Advises Pro-China Group. Mitch Landrieu will oversee $1.2 trillion in infrastructure spending.

● Hunter Biden emails boast ties to White House and China.

Classical reference in headline:

UPDATE: Rittenhouse No Longer Enrolled at ASU Following Left-Wing Protests.

SITUATION REPORT: Strategic Vapor Lock:

The new administration told you that their team was tanned, rested, and ready and the Global Posture Review was going to set a firm new direction in line with the natsec SuperFriends bringing new eyes, new outlooks, and bold actions to address the challenge of the third decade of the 21st Century.

Well.

If you were hoping that the much vaunted “the adults are in charge” brigade would give you some hope, take a seat. If you bought the hype that we were adjusting with some urgency facing the gaping maw of The Terrible 20s, the flexing power of China, and the general disjunction of people, resources, and policy in the fractured, COVID-infused underpinnings of our national security intelligencia, well … you are not going to have a good week.

You forgot who we were dealing with. The Vogons of the Beltway are here to deliver.

We need a lot of cleanup across the government, at all levels.

EPIC DAILY DEAL: Bowflex SelectTech 552 Adjustable Dumbbell. #CommissionEarned

BUT A PILL TREATMENT UNDERMINES THE CASE FOR VACCINE MANDATES: FDA panel to discuss emergency use authorization for Merck COVID-19 pill. Approval for Pfizer’s pill is still hanging fire too.

DESPITE? Biden Wants To Empower the IRS Despite Its Track Record of Trampling Rights and Undermining Privacy.

Previously: Introducing Joe Biden’s Weapons-Grade IRS.

WHY IS THE LEFT SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Twitter’s New CEO Parag Agrawal Has Disturbing Anti-American, Anti-White Tweet History.

More at the link. As Roger Simon wrote earlier this year when Jack Dorsey was still Twitter’s CEO: Quit Complaining about Twitter and Quit Already.

TITANIA MCGRATH: Orwell: my self-help guru.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered.”

I read these powerful words just the other day in a motivational self help book by George Orwell. It contains some incredible recommendations about how we ought to run the world.

One of Orwell’s best ideas is a thing called the “Memory Hole” into which we may consign all the horrific elements of our society and wipe them from history. These could include: the Daily Mail, all the Harry Potter novels, non vegan meals, the Conservative party, Sunderland and Toby Young.

It’s satire – or is it? Will Twitter Censor Images of Riots? “Will Twitter apply this policy even-handedly, or is its real purpose to get rid of Andy Ago? This language is not reassuring[.]”

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Legal Damages for Hurt Feelings and the End of Religious Freedom.

Plus:

• Twitter allows #MAYOMONKEYSGOTTAGO to trend
• DOCTOR Jill Biden Christmas-snubs her illegitimate granddaughter
• Colorado mental health pros opting out of single-payer

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

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS RESTING COMFORTABLY: ‘Bail Reform Project’ Antifa Scumbag Also A Crook. “If you remember last week’s story on just who GoFundMe allows to raise money, you might have noticed The Bail Project among the screenshotted examples. Well, Holly Zoller, one of four major figures in The Bail Project, turns out not to be just a leftwing antifa scumbag, but also apparently a serial scam-artist scumbag.”