WELCOME BACK, CARTER: ‘Living the life!’ DCCC hopes you’ll appreciate the graph they worked so hard on and join them in celebrating Joe Biden lowering gas prices:

Meanwhile: Cringey Kamala Harris Writes the Perfect GOP Campaign Ad During North Carolina Stop.

HARRIS: “It’s not right that families have to choose to either buy groceries or pay for healthcare; to either fill up their tank or pay their rent.

* * * * * * * *

That’s Kamala Harris pretending to drive an all-electric bus, then honking the horn. “The wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round,” Harris said, letting out a big laugh as Pete Buttigieg looks on.

Expect either the first, or both clips of Harris to be in wide circulation in GOP ads next year, likely with the above graphic from the DCCC. This is Dukakis in the tank levels of own-goals.

IT’S COMING: The Largest Comet We’ve Ever Seen Just Delivered a Curious Surprise. “Digging into readings logged by the Transient Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) between 2018 and 2020, researchers have discovered that BB became active much earlier, and much farther out from the Sun, than was previously thought.”

THE CULT IS ALIVE: Switching from Android to iPhone exposed my friends’ real feelings.

Surely, I thought, we’d moved past whether someone’s a “green bubble” or a “blue bubble” in a text message. But then after I started using my new iPhone, the following messages started coming in from several friends:

“I’m so happy you are blue now!!!”

“Bienvenue a la Club Apple!”

“It’s about time.”

These are all actual statements, whether through texting or in person, that friends being made aware of my switch have made to me… and I simply do not understand why.

I’m not surprised.

WELL, GOOD: Scientists find clues to what triggers rare blood clots in AstraZeneca covid vaccine.

I ENJOY READING VANCE, BUT DON’T HONESTLY KNOW MUCH ABOUT HIS POLITICS: Kasich Republican J.D. Vance: The Worst Option in Ohio’s Senate Race.

IT’S A MYSTERY: Baldwin ‘Rust’ Movie Set Shooting Investigators Try to Track Source of Live Ammunition. “Investigators initially found 500 rounds of ammunition at the movie set on the outskirts of Santa Fe — a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and what appeared to be live rounds. Industry experts have said live rounds should never be on set. Investigators have described ‘some complacency’ in how weapons were handled on the ‘Rust’ set.” Ya think?

Meanwhile, a friend writes:

“My wife is from Spain.” – Alec Baldwin on David Letterman Show, 2013

“I didn’t pull the trigger.” – Alec Baldwin on ABC, 2021

Ouch. And Tamara Keel has pungent thoughts:

Look, Alec, I get that you’re absolutely gutted by this.

I could be convinced that you legitimately believe that you did not pull the trigger. Our brains… our egos… will tell us some amazing lies in order to protect our id. Even though I think you’re a huge asshole, on some basic human to human level, I feel bad for you, because this is obviously a horrible experience.

But guns, and most specifically Colt Single Action Armies and their clones, do not work that way.

If it were some striker-fired semiauto, we could concoct some bizarre and cosmically unlikely hypothetical whereby the sear broke at the same time as the aliens from planet Zoltar beamed the firing pin safety out of the gun, but not on that smokewagon you were holding. You had to at least manually cock the hammer on that replica hogleg while pointing it at someone.

Yep.

REVIEW: 2022 Porsche Taycan GTS Looks Fierce, Has Performance to Match.

FAKE NEWS: No, Trump Didn’t Have COVID Before His Debate With Biden.

TOP SELLER: Gaoye 5-Pack Reading Glasses Blue Light Blocking,Spring Hinge Readers for Women Men Anti Glare Filter Lightweight Eyeglasses (5-pack Light Black, 2.0). #CommissionEarned

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Improve Home Defense with a Security Camera.

PROMOTING HATE: Emerson promotes professor who doubts that Black and White women can be ‘true friends.’

ACTUAL TERRORIST INSURRECTIONISTS, WHO GET FAVORABLE MEDIA FOR THE MOST PART: Extinction Rebellions threatens to blow up pipelines, kill politicians.

LIVE AT 3:30PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ Live Chat with Kruiser, VodkaPundit, and Secret Special Guest.

TOP SELLER: Victorinox Fibrox Pro Chef’s Knife. #CommissionEarned “Country of Origin : ‎USA”

THAT’S THE PLAN: Taxing Wealth Is Sure-Fire Way to End Up With Less Wealthy Society.

I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: College students in declining mental, physical health one year into COVID-19, study shows.

A FRIEND SHARES THIS FROM HIS LAST FILLUP:

He missed a real opportunity, though. Biden tormented by Republican guerrilla campaign and ‘I did it’ stickers.

Also: 100Pcs I Did That Biden Funny Car Stickers. #Resist #CommissionEarned

AND ANOTHER ONE DOWN: Peter DeFazio — High-Ranking, Swing District Democrat — To Retire in 2022.

BEHOLD, THE TRUTH BOMB: As many of you know, I teach a class in the History of Journalism at NYU. This will be referred to in my final exam. From today’s New York Post:

“Yesteryear’s ragtag muckrakers, who tirelessly championed the little guy against powerful insiders, have become insiders themselves,” wrote three social scientists surveying America’s journalists back in 1980. “Newsmen had long cherished the vantage point of the outsiders who keep the insiders straight. But now, leading journalists are courted by politicians, studied by scholars, and known to millions through their bylines and televised images.”

HOW THE RULING CLASS VIEWS PEOPLE: U.S. hedge-fund billionaire on China disappearing people: They’re behaving like a “strict parent.” “I missed this yesterday. If you did too, make amends. Not just because the contrast this clip draws with the moral righteousness displayed by the Women’s Tennis Association is so sharp but because Ray Dalio is a major figure in American finance. He’s a billionaire many times over and a top dog at the world’s biggest hedge fund. He’s also a gross moral relativist when it comes to China’s domestic atrocities. The most you can say for this response is that he’s not the worst ChiCom apologist among America’s billionaire class.”

To be fair, China will punish him for being disloyal to China. America will not punish him for being disloyal to America.

YES, THEY CAN SPEND IT AS FAST AS CONGRESS APPROPRIATES IT: Figures published by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation show federal bureaucrats have disbursed $4.9 trillion, or 85 percent, of the Coronavirus relief funds approved by Congress and signed into law by Trump and Biden.

SPACE: Vice President Harris outlines space policy aimed at ‘growing threats.’ “Vice President Kamala Harris announced Wednesday a new framework for space policy aimed at addressing growing threats in space posed by other nations, space debris and climate change. . . . Harris took aim at Russia in clear terms during her address. The new space policy framework comes on the heels of a Russian anti-satellite test Nov. 15, which destroyed one of Russia’s own satellites and created a cloud of space debris that continues to threaten astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station.”

REP. CHIP ROY’S CHALLENGE: Every day seems to bring another federal judge declaring His Fraudulency’s vaccine mandates unconstitutional, but congressional Democrats still want to fund the feds’ enforcement of those decrees.

So Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is making himself a genuine pain-in-the-tush for Republicans who want to talk about reducing government, but who lack the political intestinal fortitude to walk the walk with their votes. If ever there was a gimme vote for limiting government, defunding the enforcement of what are clearly unconstitutional executive branch decrees ought to be the one.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: If anyone doubted Rogan’s cultural status, a Vice hit piece made it abundantly clear. “The article examines what it called Rogan’s penchant for sharing misinformation, a charge never leveled at the endless array of progressive celebrities who do far worse without a single consequence.”

RIP, BIG RAGU: Laverne & Shirley actor Eddie Mekka dead at 69.