“I FOUND OUT TODAY THAT I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO VOTE ‘AYE’ OR I WILL BE ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH A FELONY.” To certify an Arizona county’s vote total. Again, we have a joke of an election system because people in power want it that way. They don’t care what this does to the actual or perceived legitimacy of elections, even though it’s only the perceived legitimacy of elections that separates us from full Mad Max.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Benefits of ‘bloodless medicine’ boost surgery without transfusions.

SURE WOULD BE NICE IF THAT DEVELOPMENT SPENDING AND OIL OUTPUT INCREASES WERE HAPPENING HERE: UAE Plans $150 Billion Spending Spree To Boost Oil Output To 5MM Barrels By 2027.

THE CORNER XI HAS PAINTED HIMSELF INTO: Ending China’s zero-covid policy could unleash chaos: But keeping it ensures a grim economic outlook for 2023.

Not all businesses have struggled through China’s zero-covid era. Andon Health, a Shenzhen-listed company that makes covid tests and medical devices, for example, posted a 32,000% increase in net profits in the third quarter of the year, compared with the same period in 2021, as it cranked out testing devices for China and America. The 35 largest companies producing covid-19 tests raked in some 150bn yuan ($21bn) in revenues in the first half of 2022, minting a new generation of pandemic tycoons.

But outside China’s covid-industrial complex, the economy is suffering. Lockdowns and onerous restrictions on movement have stunted consumer confidence and economic growth. Over the past fortnight they have inspired protests across the country, with tensions escalating over the weekend. Young people on the streets of Shanghai on November 27th rejected the prospect of endless testing and lockdowns, chanting: “We don’t want covid tests; we want freedom.”

Xi: Best I can do is more lockdowns.

SURE, BOSTON’S ALWAYS LOVED THE KING OF ENGLAND: Dysfunctional Royal Family Head to Boston to Restore Their Image.

A friend writes: “Interesting the Royals seem to have decided, if they’re gonna make it, they have to make it in America.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Don’t Be Fooled — Antifa Is America’s Nazis.

FLASHBACK: It’s Time for the Deplorables to Become the Unconquerables.

LET’S: Let’s Talk About Biden Corruption.

It was back in September 2019 that there sprang into the news the story of Hunter Biden and his million-dollar-per-year gig as a board member for Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Hunter’s gig began in April 2014 — shortly after his dad Joe, then sitting VP, took on the role of “point man” as to U.S. policy toward Ukraine. The gig then ran until some time in 2017 — shortly after Joe had left office. It just happened that Burisma had gotten the lion’s share of Ukraine oil and gas lease deals under ousted (and Russia-aligned) President Viktor Yanukovich, and had strong reason to fear prosecution under a new Ukrainian President and chief prosecutor. In early 2016 VP Joe Biden got the new prosecutor fired, and later was caught on tape bragging about it.

Essentially the entire story about these events in the state media since 2019 has been the story of minimization and/or suppression of the facts and their significance. The suppression went to a whole new level a year later, in October 2020, when the New York Post broke the story of a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden that had been abandoned at a computer repair shop in Delaware. This was now just a few weeks before the 2020 election, with Joe Biden the Democratic candidate for President. The laptop contained extensive emails and other documents detailing Hunter’s business dealings in places where his father had major influence on U.S. foreign policy, including not just Ukraine, but also China, Kazakhstan, and other countries, as well as father Joe’s involvement in same.

Promptly, some 50 former U.S. intelligence officials issued a letter stating that the laptop had all the “earmarks” of “a Russian information operation.” The state media adopted that line as gospel. Most shamefully, all of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube (Google) explicitly suppressed the story by either banning any information about it or minimizing its distribution on their platforms.

Well, perhaps the time has finally come when this story can be discussed.

Read the whole thing, and remember: “The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.”

READER FAVORITE: iRobot Roomba i3+ EVO (3550) Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum. #CommissionEarned

WAIT, WHAT? Legal Gun Purchases = Slavery?

BLUE STATE BLUES: California food stamp costs reach record highs.

CHAOS UMPIRE SITS: How Joe Biden caused the diesel supply crisis he is complaining about.

IN PRETTY MUCH EVERY HUMAN SOCIETY IN HISTORY THIS WOULD BE A CONSIDERED BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS: Walker: Young people haven’t earned the right to change the country. Young people, by definition, haven’t seen much and don’t know much. The idea that this gives them special insight would have been regarded as ludicrous until about the time I was born.

The cult of youth was engineered by people who wanted to sell ideas that only naive and gullible folks would accept. Encouraging young people not to listen to what people with more experience told them was an isolation tool, such as are employed by cults.

AMERICAN STASI: ‘Ethics’ app at Clemson allows students to instantaneously report on each other with texts, videos.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Elon Musk Bought Twitter, Now the Left Will Destroy Them Both. “Onetime Democrat voter Elon Musk made the Left’s naughty list, and now they’re out to get him with everything they’ve got.”

• Thank you for explaining the magpie pronoun set
• DOCTOR Jill Biden lets the dirty truth slip out
• I just wrote Gavin Newsom’s presidential campaign slogan and he’ll hate it because it’s true

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

SCIENCE IS REAL: ‘Genderbread person’ makes appearance in nursing course.

THE VASSALIZATION OF RUSSIA CONTINUES APACE: The yuan’s the new dollar as Russia rides to the redback.

YES. The incoming House of Representatives should hold hearings on the destructive racialization of medical schools and medicine. “Medical School education is in crisis, with ‘social justice’ and race-focused activism being imposed on students, faculty, and staff.”

ONCE AGAIN WE HAVE A CLOSE RUNOFF IN GEORGIA THAT IS IMPORTANT TO SENATE CONTROL, AND THE GOP IS LETTING IT SLIDE: Gulp: Warnock’s war chest triple that of Walker’s. Is it because they know the fix is in, or because they don’t want to win?

CHINA: Video: ‘It’s unimaginable’ – Mainland students in Hong Kong share hopes and fears for China’s Covid demos.

Related: “Rule of Law” in Hong Kong? “Weeks after Hong Kong holds a conference and sends emissaries overseas to maintain that the city still has rule of law, Beijing will overturn the Court of ‘Final’ Appeal’s rejection of the government’s attempt to bar British lawyer Timothy Owen from defending Jimmy Lai. Officially, CE John Lee is ‘requesting’ the NPC Standing Committee to ‘interpret’ the NatSec Law. In practice, Beijing will redefine the wording and amend or expand the meaning of the law.”

From the comments:

In the midst of the anti-extradition protests in October 2019, I published a list of 16 community leaders with whom the Administration could meet if it wished to negotiate an end to the protests. Of course, Mrs. Lam sent in the police instead.

Here’s where the 16 community leaders are now:

In prison: 2
In jail awaiting trial: 3
On bail awaiting trial: 4
In exile: 4
Convicted with suspended sentence due to terminal illness: 1

Two have been allowed to escape the net:

Charles Mok, resigned from Legco IT functional constituency in 2020
Anson Chan, retired from public life

Talking about rule of law in Hong Kong is pointless. The sooner discussion moves on from that quaint notion, the better.

There’s a scene in Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age where a hapless character asks “don’t I have any rights?” Response from a policeman: “Don’t be an asshole, this is China!”

MEGAN FOX, FILLING IN ON KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Thanksgiving Hangover Edition. “All I want for Christmas is Jeffrey Epstein’s clients on trial. Is that too much to ask?”

IF YOU LOOK UP “RECKLESS DISREGARD” IN THE DICTIONARY, THERE’S PROBABLY A LISTING FOR THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: Devin Nunes’ Libel Claim Over Rachel Maddow Broadcast Can Proceed.

WELL: Biden’s “disinformation czar” registers as foreign agent.

That’s nothing. Most of his administration should register as working for China.

AND ANOTHER ONE: Crypto lender BlockFi files for bankruptcy after FTX collapse. “BlockFi, which operates in a similar fashion to a conventional bank, paying interest on savings and using customer deposits to fund lending, says it has $256.9m cash in hand. According to court documents, its creditors include FTX itself, to which it owes $275m, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to which it owes $30m.”

IT’LL NEVER HAPPEN, THE FIX IS IN: Investigate! 62% want Hunter Biden probed.

Even under a Republican president I expect the FBI would drag its feet and run interference.

Related: Majority see FBI as Biden’s ‘personal Gestapo’ after Trump raid.