HMM: Uh oh. Search warrant for Alec Baldwin’s phone issued. “From the beginning of this entire mess, I’ve been of the opinion that this truly was just a horrible accident caused by a cascading series of gross failures in safe firearms handling procedures. At most, I assumed that Baldwin might have been accused of gross negligence by failing to check the weapon and the ammunition himself upon being handed the revolver. I still can’t imagine how he could be culpable beyond that, but perhaps the investigation has revealed information that we’ve not been given yet.”

Well, that’s why we have investigations and trials and such, instead of just going on initial news reports, even though the latter is in fashion these days.

STANDING UP AGAINST FOREIGN COLLUSION: Purdue president calls harassment, intimidation of pro-freedom Chinese student ‘unacceptable.’

Daniels was responding to a recent article in ProPublica that detailed the intimidation and harassment faced by Chinese Purdue student Zhihao Kong after he spoke out against the Chinese government.

Kong, an engineering student, had recently gone public with his complaints against China, saying he was appalled that the Communist regime had claimed the COVID-19 virus originated in the United States. He further said China had worsened the pandemic by covering up the presence of the virus.

Finally, he posted an open letter praising the Tiananmen Square protesters who died at the hands of the People’s Republic of China three decades ago. . . .

Chinese officials saw his post and paid a visit to his parents, trying to intimidate them into getting Kong to stop posting pro-democracy statements. When he finally talked to his parents, Kong said they “were crying in the phone call. My father was urging me to stop such activities.”

Members of the Purdue Chinese Students and Scholars Association began threatening Kong in an online chat.

I think these students should be investigated for doing the work of a foreign power. Mitch Daniels’ comment:

“Joining the Purdue community requires acceptance of its rules and values, and no value is more central to our institution or to higher education generally than the freedom of inquiry and expression,” said Daniels, adding, “Those seeking to deny those rights to others, let alone to collude with foreign governments in repressing them, will need to pursue their education elsewhere.”

Daniels’ whole statement is here.

I’M OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER WHEN IRAN WAS BROKE AND INCREASINGLY BOXED IN: Iranian Newspaper Publishes a Map With List of Targets in Israel: ‘Just One Wrong Move.’

EPIC DAILY DEAL: Greenworks 13 Amp 20-Inch Corded Snow Thrower. #CommissionEarned

HIGHER EDUCATION: Frat house cannot hang its own Christmas wreath, university insists.

FOREIGN COLLUSION: NFL Marks Taiwan as Part of China. “The map, which introduced markets for 18 NFL teams in eight countries, shows Taiwan unlabeled and colored in as part of China. The erasure of Taiwan comes two months after President Xi Jinping gave a speech in October calling for the ‘reunification’ of the island nation with China, whether in a ‘peaceful manner’ or by ‘firm will.'”

Out: Standing for the national anthem.

In: Bending the knee for the CCP.

AND THE PRESS IS DOING ITS BEST TO MAKE SURE PEOPLE FORGET THAT: Disgrace: Biden abandoned over 60,000 Afghan interpreters, support personnel — along with 14,000 Americans.

I WONDER IF THIS IS PARTLY DRIVEN BY THE IMPENDING SUPREME COURT RULING: FDA lifts restriction on abortion pill, permanently allowing delivery by mail.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Thought Experiment — Imprison the Mask/Vax Mandate Nazis. “I could forgive government overreach at the beginning of the pandemic. Everyone was flying blind then. That didn’t stop Democrats and their flying monkeys in the media from blaming President Trump for everything at the time though. Now, however, Fauci and the elected Dems who revere him are just out of control and trying their damnedest to do a Soviet 2.0 thing here in the United States.”

HIGHER EDUCATION IS A CESSPIT OF RACISM: A white administrator is claiming she was fired based on her race, and based on her complaints that her department chair said “I despise white people” and various other things.

Make them pay.

MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: It’s time to abolish ‘emergency’ COVID-19 powers.

People have noticed and rebelled. And authorities are cracking. Gov. Kathy Hochul just backed down after her effort to impose a statewide mask mandate drew overwhelming opposition. Businesses said they wouldn’t cooperate. Local officials said they wouldn’t enforce the rule. Hochul caved, saying she wouldn’t force counties to go along. Righty pundit Matt Margolis called it a “spectacular failure,” and it was.

Amtrak, facing broad resistance from its workers, suspended its vaccine mandate for employees. And Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said no to a mask mandate, declaring, “The emergency is over.”

It is. And now that it’s over, we need to claw back all the power seized by various institutions in the name of emergency. And when that’s done, we need a searching inquiry into how the power was exercised — an inquiry with consequences.

It’s time.

Time and past time.

DON’T BE EVIL: New Google Drive policy could restrict access to your files.

Google’s about to make some changes to the way you share Google Drive files. The search giant has announced a new policy that will restrict access to files violating its policies, and prevent them from being shared in the process.

Google announced this change in a blog post, revealing that restrictions may be put in place on files that violate Google’s Terms of Service or abuse program policies. While the owner will still have full access, this move means sharing privileges will be revoked — even if someone already has a link.

According to Google file owners will receive an email when files are restricted. Not only does that alert them to the fact it’s happened, it will also give them the opportunity to appeal the decision and request a review.

“The cloud” is just a fancy way of saying “someone else’s hard drive.”

So if it’s something you don’t want someone else to take away, lose, or look at, then don’t store it on somebody else’s hard drive.

CALIFORNIA HAS DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH JERRY BROWN IS A VOICE OF SANITY: Jerry Brown on advice to Gavin Newsom on California’s crime, budget and more.

Gov. Brown is concerned about images of smash and grab robberies on television screens every night.

He said there are not enough consequences currently for criminals.

“You’ve heard about the redistribution of wealth. We need a redistribution of incarceration… We’ve got all these people committing break ins, snatch and grab shooting up heroin on the street and they just walk out. So if we got the long termers and got them out a little quicker and we took the short term risk…put them in and give them some drug treatment and training,” he said.

He added: “But you got to have the carrot, but you got to have the stick and the stick is you go steal a car or something. You do spend some time. You don’t have to spend 10 years, put it in for a month and they do it again, put them in for three,” he said.

When you’re a leftist governor who’s lost Jerry Brown…

IN 1860 THE NORTH HAD ALL THE GUNMAKERS, MORE OR LESS. HOW THINGS CHANGE. Seventeen gun firms flee to friendlier states.

COVID IS OVER: Newest evidence that Omicron is mild: Florida poop? “Orange County, Florida, is home to DisneyWorld, SeaWorld, and Universal Studios. Researchers there have been checking the wastewater and found something interesting. Omicron is suddenly prevalent — but Omicron patients at local hospitals are not.”

‘UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES:’ NBC Shocked Defund the Police Hurt Lib City.

Like a child who’s about to touch the stovetop for the first time, NBC Nightly News was in for a rude awakening Thursday night as they discovered that the Defund the Police movement they supported actually harmed the liberal stronghold of Burlington, Vermont. Correspondent Stephanie Gosk was shocked to discover the “unintended consequences” of cutting the police department’s budget by 30 percent, leaving people feeling unsafe.

“In Burlington, Vermont roll call looks a little different than it used to,” she announced as she began the report. “Often just five officers are on shift for a city of more than 44,000 after Burlington’s leaders cut the police force by nearly 30 percent. Essentially imposing a hiring freeze.”

This result came after the network, along with ABC and CBS, engaged in Orwellian doublespeak last summer and tried to tell Americans that “defund the police” didn’t actually mean defunding the police.

“Tonight, across the country, there is a growing movement to defund police departments. But what exactly does that mean? Well, apparently not the same thing to everybody,” wondered anchor Lester Holt on June 8, 2020.

Correspondent Morgan Radford answered Holt moments later, saying: “The movement calls for cutting down police budgets and reinvesting that money into services for marginalized communities.”

Senator Blutarsky and a legendary Beverly Hills gynecologist could not be reached for comment:

THIS IS CNN: Another Day, Another (Alleged) Perv at CNN.

STAY WARM: AN Cooling Weighted Blankets. #CommissionEarned

I HOPE NOT: Will Heather Gerken Be Reappointed As Dean of Yale Law School? I’m not convinced her replacement would be much better, but there need to be consequences for the sort of extreme administrative malfeasance we’ve seen at Yale.

FOREIGN COLLUSION: NFL Marks Taiwan as Part of China.

CHRIS RUFO: Florida v. Critical Race Theory: Governor Ron DeSantis takes a stand against racialist ideologies in public institutions and businesses.

THE RADICALIZATION OF A COVID MODERATE: The pandemic is real and serious. But for most of us, it’s time to return to normal. “But it’s far less common to point out that, at this point in the pandemic, there are almost no non-pharmaceutical interventions that make any sense at all. And if mask mandates, physical distancing, capacity restrictions, and other rules put in place before widespread vaccination don’t make sense, they should be dropped — not reluctantly, but enthusiastically.”

In truth, our policy response was a wild overreaction. It might have been appropriate for something like smallpox, but this was more like a rather bad flu. Maybe 3 times worse than regular flu, justifying a response that was maybe 3 times farther-reaching than the response to the regular flu.

Plus: “Early in the pandemic, we needed to buy time to understand the virus better, to develop treatments, and to stand up a full-fledged testing-and-tracing infrastructure to facilitate containment, which we never did. Since containment has comprehensively failed, most everyone on earth will either be vaccinated or infected eventually. We now have enough vaccines domestically to cover everyone multiple times over. So what exactly are we buying time for?”

WELL, THEY’RE RIGHT: POLL: Majorities Of Both Parties Say The Media Isn’t Trustworthy.

THIS IS A TRUMP LIKE-BULLSEYE AS A NICKNAME: ‘Senator Karen:’ Elon Musk just destroyed Elizabeth Warren.

The irony of a career politician, who subsists off the taxpayer dime, decrying a wildly successful entrepreneur who has created countless jobs and innovations as a “freeloader” was simply too much for Musk to resist. With intoxicating levels of chaos energy and internet meme-lordery key parts of his persona, Musk is not one to take a slight lying down.

“If you opened your eyes for 2 seconds, you would realize I will pay more taxes than any American in history this year,” he replied. “Don’t spend it all at once … oh wait you did already.”

“You remind me of when I was a kid and my friend’s angry Mom would just randomly yell at everybody for no reason,” Musk continued. “Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen.”

As for the implication that he’s a fraud, Musk simply replied, “Stop projecting!” with a link to a Fox News article detailing Elizabeth Warren’s long history of falsely claiming to be a Native American.

And you know it’s a bullseye, when: Joy Reid deemed ‘1 of the dumbest people in media’ for accusing Elon Musk of appropriating his Karen insult from Black people; Updated: Musk fires back.

At least in this video, comedian Dane Cook, who likely created the Karen meme in 2005, looks rather white to me (language warning):

THIS IS NOT THE 21ST CENTURY I’D BEEN HOPING FOR BUT IT IS THE ONE I’VE COME TO EXPECT: The metaverse has a groping problem already.

Last week, Meta (the umbrella company formerly known as Facebook) opened up access to its virtual-reality social media platform, Horizon Worlds. Early descriptions of the platform make it seem fun and wholesome, drawing comparisons to Minecraft. In Horizon Worlds, up to 20 avatars can get together at a time to explore, hang out, and build within the virtual space.

But not everything has been warm and fuzzy. According to Meta, on November 26, a beta tester reported something deeply troubling: she had been groped by a stranger on Horizon Worlds. On December 1, Meta revealed that she’d posted her experience in the Horizon Worlds beta testing group on Facebook.

Meta’s internal review of the incident found that the beta tester should have used a tool called “Safe Zone” that’s part of a suite of safety features built into Horizon Worlds. Safe Zone is a protective bubble users can activate when feeling threatened. Within it, no one can touch them, talk to them, or interact in any way until they signal that they would like the Safe Zone lifted.

Facebook’s future is a whole lot like Facebook’s past, just creepier.