ROGER KIMBALL: Oh, Oh, Omicron!

So far, I have to say, it’s been pretty much of a dud—unless, that is, you’re the stock market, which has taken a beating this last week or so, in part because of this new kid on the medical block (there is also that much more toxic financial emergency, the Biden Administration, but that’s for another day). The new variant has also been a godsend for scolds, nags, bureaucrats, and meddlesome so-called public health officials nannies who are just itching for another excuse to lock down your world, introduce new travel restrictions, and impose new testing protocols.

How will it all play out? TSTS—Too Soon to Say, but I suspect this sequel is going to be a flop at the box office. For one thing, although only recently named, there is abundant evidence that Omicron has been around for months. If it had been previously unnamed, that is perhaps because it is no big deal. The South African doctor who first identified the strain noted that while the virus was possibly more contagious than versions named for letters earlier in the Greek alphabet, symptoms tended to be mild, indeed “very mild.” A typical news report notes that “patients mostly suffered from mild muscle aches, scratchy throat and dry cough.” (Remember colds? Remember the flu?)

So why the panic? Partly, it is because panic is an antidote to boredom. People are heavily bored. Panic also licenses the people who want to run your life to, well, run your life. “Most Omicron cases so far have been mild,” runs one headline, “but experts say it will take weeks to understand how severe the variant can be.” Ah, “experts”! What would we do without them?

One thing we’d do is ride public transportation without wearing a mask. But apparently there are sufficient numbers of people who are cowed enough, or bored enough, to don the little badge of their submission and pretend that they are not only “staying safe” but keeping you safe, too. Where did your mother tell you that road paved with good intentions led?

Here’s the reality: the COVID “pandemic” is over. I hasten to add: also, it will never end.

Earlier: Panic is a Lifestyle Brand.

R.I.P. Bob Dole Dies at 98.

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING: Is America—and the world—prepared for what comes next?

Whatever happens, I find I cannot escape the sense that America has reached an impasse, that it has arrived at a moment of transition, and not just on the matter of abortion. Whether one looks at politics, economics, or the world, one sees a realignment of forces, a shuffling of players off and on the stage, to prepare for the next act in the drama. The Trump presidency seems less like the harbinger of a new beginning than a spectacular climax to a historical epoch. If so, we are living through a sort of denouement, a working through of conflicts left unresolved. “It feels like the order we have all taken for granted since the end of the Cold War is badly decaying, and has gotten so fragile that it might well shatter soon,” wrote Damir Marusic of Wisdom of Crowds last month. Question is: What replaces it?

If the Court does overrule Roe next summer, America will have entered uncharted territory. Many states will ban abortion immediately. Others will legalize it for the duration of a pregnancy. Still others will restrict and limit the practice. Abortion will be a matter for legislatures—including the U.S. Congress. Both Democrats and Republicans believe that abortion would become a major issue in next year’s midterm campaign, with unforeseeable consequences. Would a pro-choice backlash help Democrats? Perhaps. Then again, some of us thought that Texas’s fetal heartbeat law might help Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey. That didn’t happen.

Conversely, if the Court does preserve Roe, many conservatives and Republicans fear a pro-life backlash directed at the GOP infrastructure and conservative legal movement. No less an authority than former attorney general Ed Meese wrote in the Washington Post that the “success” of constitutional originalism depends on the Court’s ruling in Dobbs. Tension already is high within the conservative legal movement over former president Donald Trump, his attempt to remain in office, and the intellectual challenges from “common-good” constitutionalists and from advocates of judicial “engagement” over “restraint.” A disappointing ruling may not only deflate Republican enthusiasm, but also turn grassroots conservatives in more radical directions.

Read the whole thing.

REPORT: Ben Roethlisberger expects this season to be his last.

VERY SMALL, BUT YES: Rand Paul: Chris Cuomo firing ‘a small step toward CNN regaining any credibility.’

‘CHRISTMAS WITH THE CHOSEN:’ Looks like the holiday special from the crew behind the immensely successful, crowd-funded series have another winner. Here’s a trailer for the special and here’s a surprisingly positive report from the Wall Street Journal. Quality, like cream, does rise to the top.

OCEANIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH CHRIS CUOMO:

Shot: CNN’s Brian Stelter speculates Chris Cuomo could return to air by January.

—The Colorado Springs Gazette, Wednesday.

Chaser: Hmmm: Brian Stelter Says Chris Cuomo Caused ‘So Many Headaches’ at CNN.

—Matt Margolis, PJ Media.com, today.

CONSEQUENCES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Disgraced FBI agent John ‘Zip’ Connolly in Massachusetts on full pension: You can thank Congress for passing the ‘Hiss Act.’ “He kept his pension, despite being convicted of second-degree murder in 2008, because Congress passed the Hiss Act in 1954 that allows lawmakers, and therefore federal employees, to keep their retirement benefits unless convicted of espionage or treason.”

REPORT: Former U.S. presidential candidate Bob Dole has died at age 98.

BYLINES OF BRUTALITY: Listen: Unhinged NYT Journalist’s Foulmouthed Voicemail for Great Lakes Gun Rights.

Remember this when they brag about their own professionalism. (Classical reference in headline.)

UPDATE: From the comments: “Imagine her call to AAA after Waukesha.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: New York Times reviews Wirecutter editor Erin Marquis over voicemail for gun rights group after Michigan shooting.

Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha, in an email to CNBC, said, “We expect our employees to behave in a way that is consistent with our values and commitment to the highest ethical standards.”

“We are currently reviewing this matter, which involves an employee of Wirecutter, our product recommendation site, who does not work in The New York Times newsroom,” the spokeswoman said.

Marquis declined to comment.

She’s not even an actual NYT reporter, so she was lying as well as crazy.

STILL POPULAR: Better Off Dead: A Jack Reacher Novel. #CommissionEarned

TO BE FAIR, FREEDOM ISN’T ONE OF STANFORD’S VALUES: ‘Pro-freedom’ Pence speech denied funding by Stanford student government.

EPIC DAILY DEAL: Snow Joe SJ626E Electric Snow Thrower | 22-Inch | 14.5 Amp. #CommissionEarned

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Stanford University: Masks required, clothes optional.

TODAY IN MEDIA-MANUFACTURED CONTROVERSIES: Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie tweets pro-gun photo days after Michigan school shooting.

That’s because he was pro-gun before and after this random event. What they’re unhappy about is that they weren’t able to cow him into not expressing his position, and accepting that guns are somehow evil. Good for him.

NOW OUT FROM MY FRIEND HIAWATHA BRAY: Power in the Blood. (Bumped).

THE STEPHANOPOULOS INTERVIEW WAS AWFUL: ‘He Confessed.’ Actor Adam Baldwin’s Blistering Takedown of ‘Preening’ Alec Baldwin’s CYA ABC Interview.

F MINUS: White House Report Card: Jobs mixed, virus raging, Harris failing.

TOP SELLER: TurboTax Deluxe 2021 Tax Software, Federal and State Tax Return with Federal E-file [Amazon Exclusive] [PC/Mac Disc]. #CommissionEarned

IN THE MICHIGAN SCHOOL SHOOTING THEY’RE CHARGING THE PARENTS, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE SCHOOL? “This is part of a larger issue of government declining to keep the peace and attempting to convince us that it cannot keep the peace, something I wrote about last month, after the Rittenhouse verdict and the Waukesha massacre.”

If the government can’t and won’t keep the peace, why have it around at all?

BOB ZUBRIN NOTES Growing support for nuclear power on the left.

The thing to remember is that the anti-nuclear movement wasn’t really about nukes. It was designed, by Tom Hayden, et al., to keep the infrastructure of the anti-Vietnam War movement alive after the Vietnam War was over.

FIGHT THE POWER, STICK IT TO THE MAN: Alumni Withhold Donations, Demand Colleges Enforce Free Speech.

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.

“If you say the wrong words, you could lose your position or be shunned,” said Mr. Neuss. . . .

Mr. Neuss, who graduated from Cornell in 1976, withheld his donation and then helped start the Cornell Free Speech Alliance. It is one of about 20 such dissident alumni organizations that have taken root on college campuses over the last couple of years—including several this fall.

Many of the groups are driven by politically moderate or conservative men who graduated from college in the late 1960s and 1970s, according to interviews with several of the group leaders. They believe progressive groupthink has taken over college campuses, and are urging schools to protect free speech and encourage a diverse set of views. In some cases, alumni are withholding donations to pressure schools to take them seriously.

“This is a battle for our culture and, in many ways, for Western civilization,” said John Craig, who heads a similar organization at Davidson College in North Carolina called Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse. “Open and free expression is what makes our country great, and if we lose this, our country is in deep trouble.” . . .

This fall, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology disinvited University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot from delivering a scientific lecture at the school because he alleged that a new cadre of diversity, equity and inclusion officers was creating a climate in which faculty were self-censoring.

The disinvitation prompted Tom Hafer, a 1970 MIT graduate, to withhold donations and then to help launch the MIT Free Speech Alliance to support free speech, open inquiry and viewpoint diversity. It currently has about 250 members. He is calling for the school to host a debate between Dr. Abbot and one of the six new associate deans for diversity, equity and inclusion.

A spokesman for MIT said the school is grateful for their alumni, respects their perspective and declined to comment about specific views.

“This is our litmus test because he holds ideas that the woke crowd finds anathema,” Mr. Hafer said. “He needs to be able to explain his position without being harassed or interrupted or intimidated.”

Indeed.

DIPLOMACY RIGHT NOW:

Related: U.S. warns of possible Russian invasion of Ukraine with 175,000 troops in 2022.

THEY CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF: Joel Kotkin: The great nudge: Government, Big Tech and the media are all trying to nudge us into adopting the ‘right’ behaviour.

When we think of oppressive regimes, we immediately think of the Stalinist model portrayed in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the heavy-handed thought control associated with Hitler’s Reich or Mao’s China. But where the old propaganda was loud, crude and often lethal, the contemporary style of thought control takes the form of a gentle nudging towards orthodoxy – a gentle push that gradually closes off one’s critical faculties and leads one to comply with gently given directives. Governments around the world, including in the UK, notes the Guardian, have been embracing this approach with growing enthusiasm.

Nudging grew out of research into behavioural economics, and was popularised in Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s 2008 book, Nudge. It now has widespread public support and has influenced everything from health warnings for cigarettes to calorie counts for fast food. Yet nudging also has an authoritarian edge, employing techniques and technologies that the Gestapo or NKVD could only dream about to promote the ‘right behaviour’.

Tech firms, both in the US and China, already use messaging nudges to ‘control behaviours’. They use their power to purge their platforms of the wrong messages, as both Facebook and Twitter did when they censored the New York Post’s pre-election story about President Biden’s dissolute son, Hunter.

They’re garbage, and this shouldn’t be tolerated.

OPEN THREAD: Sometimes I get a good feeling.