HE’S RIGHT, YOU KNOW:

As Biden collapses in the polls, and Trump rises, Democrats are going to resort to increasingly desperate — and anti-democratic — means to ensure Trump can't run, all while they insist that only they are the Guardians of Democracy.

This is playing with real fire: https://t.co/UFdoju77UW

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 20, 2023

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1737462680288370875

Related:

Colorado Saves Democracy By Not Allowing People To Vote For Preferred Candidate https://t.co/N15XfiPRbK pic.twitter.com/K637JI4Rk6

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 20, 2023

Also related: “A giant game of civilizational Jenga, with one support after another for civil society being withdrawn.”

ERASING HISTORY: Confederate Memorial at Arlington will be removed despite GOP opposition.

The Left can’t tolerate a monument to reconciliation and national unity for obvious reasons.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: The Left Is Panicking Over Biden and I’ll Pop the Corn. “When the lefty author of ‘It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics’ says it’s time for Democrats to panic, then it’s time for Democrats to panic. Presidentish Joe Biden’s reelection chances are shuffling aimlessly around like Joe at the end of a speech.”

HMM: Tesla and Mercedes-Benz to compensate for loss of German EV subsidies. “The German government announced that it will abruptly end its subsidy program for electric vehicles on December 31, which has dealt a blow to automakers in one of its biggest European markets. But Tesla and Mercedes-Benz say that they will compensate for it, covering the full price of the subsidy for German buyers, with other automakers joining in.”

If this keeps up, someday we might even get an idea of what these cars really cost.

GLENN GREENWALD:

After 2016 — first Brexit, then Trump's win — Western elites decided populations could no longer be trusted with basic freedoms: they choose and think wrong.

That's what led to the censorship/"disinformation" regime. Now they're barring the leading candidate from running: https://t.co/ITavEgfWLW

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 20, 2023

In the dystopian 2012 science fiction film The Giver, Meryl Streep’s (very) Hillary-esque “Chief Elder” character tells Jeff Bridges, “When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong–every single time:”

In her initial appearances as a giant hologram and with her clipped and condescending speech patterns, Meryl Streep as the “Chief Elder” seems eerily reminiscent of Hillary Clinton — and indeed The Community is the futuristic yet primitive village that Hillary believes it takes to raise a child. Near the end of the film, Streep’s Chief Elder sums up the theme of the film in a line that’s right of the Clinton/Obama playbook: “When people have the power to choose, they choose wrong. Every single time.” Which neatly ties together Bill Clinton’s 1999 line on tax cuts and returning the budget surplus of that era back to the taxpayers: “We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right. . . . Do you really want to run the risk of squandering this surplus?” And Hillary’s infamous 2004 promise that “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

Despite Hillary’s remarkable similarity to Streep’s Chief Elder character, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if The Giver’s author winds up voting for her in 2016. The Wall Street Journal noted last year, “while she’s quick to burnish her own Democratic Party leanings, Ms. Lowry concedes that social conservatives ‘could find their views validated by this book.”

And we certainly can’t have that, whether it’s at the movie theater, the bookstore, or the ballot box.

I’D RATHER THEY GRADUATE PEOPLE WHO UNDERSTAND PHARMACOKINETICS: Southern Illinois U. med school hires first poetry professor; dean is her father: Carr describes herself as ‘ecofeminist,’ writes abortion poetry. “There are 5,800 institutions of higher learning across America. What are the odds that Carr landed at the only institution that employs her father as dean and provost?”

Follow the science!

THAT’S ANOTHER SIGN OF INCREASING SENESCENCE: Aides Say Biden Is Oblivious to How Old He Comes Across.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF HIGHER EDUCATION: NYU promotes pronoun website that recommends gender-neutral terms like ‘Crotch Goblins.’

I’M SO OLD I REMEMBER WHEN LEFTIES WOULDN’T EAT THERE ANY DAY OF THE WEEK: New bill would require Chick-fil-A to be open on Sunday. “A bill has been introduced in New York that could affect Chick-fil-A locations at rest stops along Interstate 90 in New York state.”

Pretty sure this is a not-so-veiled attack on the company’s Christian principle not to work on Sundays.

READER FAVORITE: Flying Orb Ball, 2023 Upgraded Flying Ball Toy. #CommissionEarned

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Colorado Supreme Court Hits Trump, Begs for SCOTUS Attention. “To say that the Colorado court went rogue on this one would be a real trip over the Understatement Bridge.”

SILENT PROTEST: America Had ‘Quiet Quitting.’ In China, Young People Are ‘Letting It Rot.’

Record youth unemployment that topped 21% this year has further dented confidence in traditional paths to achievement in China. Some, like Li, are also frustrated about other issues, such as violence against women in China or government efforts to prevent people from accessing foreign apps such as Twitter or Instagram.

Many are quitting their jobs and turning to meditation and other forms of spirituality. Some are moving far from China’s megacities to start lives anew in places like Dali, a southwestern city famous within China as a hub for digital nomads and dropouts.

Others are flooding fortune-teller stands and Buddhist temples in mountainous areas, or exploring Chinese and Western philosophers and writers from Laozi to Hermann Hesse. Some are throwing “quitting parties” with banners celebrating their newfound freedom.

“This generation has had a lot of resources invested in them,” said Sara Friedman, professor of anthropology and gender studies at Indiana University, who studies Chinese society.

“They have worked really hard. They have been pushed really hard. And to then say, ‘I’m stepping out of this rat race, I’m opting out,’ is a pretty radical decision to be making.”

If young people can’t find work or are dropping out of a working-age population that’s already shrinking, that’s a real problem.

IT’S A HATE CRIME EVEN TO NOTICE THIS: Politically Connected Trans-Activist Arrested for Child Rape.

THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS: The Military Is Collapsing Under The Weight Of Its Own Wokeness.

In October 2020, Major General Ed Thomas — who at the time was the commander of the Air Force Recruiting Service — wrote an op-ed for Yahoo News. It was entitled, “86% of Air Force pilots are white men. Here’s why this needs to change.”

In about 800 words, Major General Thomas outlined his plan to recruit pilots without regard for their competence or fitness or loyalty to the United States. Instead, Thomas explained, the most important thing for the Air Force to focus on was the skin color of its recruits. He said that hiring more black and brown recruits was vital in order to keep pace with Russia and China. They’re busy developing hypersonic missiles that can fly at 20 times the speed of sound, the general wrote — but we’ve got our secret sauce that will keep us competitive. And that secret sauce, as he described it, is diversity. According to Ed Thomas, “Our goal is to get in front of every demographic group in America and show them someone who wears a flight suit every day they can look up to and say, ‘That could be me.’”

Three years after he wrote that op-ed and launched the Air Force’s anti-white recruitment plan, Major General Ed Thomas retired. He inflicted his DEI recruitment strategy on the Air Force, and then he left. So he doesn’t have any reason to care about the consequences. But especially as World War III seems more plausible by the day, the rest of us have an important question to ask, which is: how did this DEI strategy turn out, exactly?

Thomas’ replacement — a general named Christopher Amrhein testified this month before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He informed Congress that for the first time in 24 years, the Air Force has failed to meet its recruitment goal. Once again, for the first time in more than two decades, the Air Force didn’t hit its recruiting objective. It was off by around 10%. And they’re not alone. Amrhein went on to testify that the Army and Navy — which also put a new emphasis on recruiting minority candidates — also fell far short of their projections in the most recent fiscal year, which ended in September.

Related: The US Army discovers woke doesn’t win wars — but is it too late?

MICHAEL WALSH: A Model Immigrant.

A QUARTER BILLION DOLLARS, 1,500 ACRES, AND AN UNDERGROUND SURVIVAL BUNKER: What the Hell Is Going on with Zuckerberg’s Hawaii Supervillain Lair?

STRAIGHT TALK: Israel’s Opposition Leader Has a Message for Democrats. They May Not Like It.

Yair Lapid, Israel’s opposition leader and former prime minister, has spent his political career trying to vanquish Benjamin Netanyahu.

You might not know it from his recent conversations with Senate Democrats.

In a series of phone calls with left-of-center American lawmakers since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, Lapid has conveyed resolute support for the Netanyahu-led government’s strategy in Gaza. There has been no second-guessing of the war cabinet or quiet sniping at Israel’s unpopular right-wing administration.

Some who know Lapid, who served as Israel’s interim leader for the final six months of 2022, have been struck by his formality on the phone — and the absence of the lively and confiding mien that American Democrats can find disarming.

“Despite his deep, historic misgivings about Netanyahu, he wanted to make clear that there was real unanimity of purpose when it comes to the campaign in Gaza,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “He was delivering a message about the imperative of defeating Hamas.”

When I asked Murphy if Lapid had actually mentioned his rivalry with Netanyahu, he quickly clarified that Lapid had not.

Lapid clearly understands that if he shows any daylight between himself and Netanyahu before the war is won, the anti-Israeli American Left will exploit the division to force an end to the war before it is won.

Lapid and Netanyahu can duke it out after — and they certainly will.

NO SURPRISE HERE: Ahmad Kahalot, chief of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, admits on a Hamas video to being a high-ranking Hamas military officer, according to the Washington Free Beacon’s Charles Hilu. Now, will the New York Times and other Mainstream Media outlets at the very least qualify their acceptance of Hamas casualty figures as arguable Hamas propaganda?

FLASHBACK: WHIPSAWED BY THE PARTY LINE: So this piece at The Atlantic yesterday — published at noon — tries to connect people opposing Obama’s attack-Syria plan with (in the Democrats’ latest buzzword) “Neo-Confederates.” But then, within hours, Obama himself had turned Neo-Confederate, asking Congress to postpone his vote. Oops! The window where you were racist if you didn’t want to bomb brown people has slammed shut.

VICTORIA TAFT: Still Don’t Think This Is a Battle of Good and Evil, Eh? “What does teaching a child how to do BJs and the finer points of masturbation have to do with success in school? Does it help a child’s ability to learn math facts, how to read, or understand what they’re reading? What is it that our schools should be teaching, anyway? If you’re the newly-elected Fairfax County, Va., school board president, gay sex should be front and center. In fact, when Karl Frisch took his oath of office, he laid his left hand on gay porn books and, with his right arm raised and his male partner looking adoringly at him, he swore an oath to be a ‘providential magistrate’ of Fairfax County schools.”

IN JOHN RINGO’S BLACK TIDE RISING WORLD, WITH A STORY BY SARAH A. HOYT (AND MUCH BIGGER NAMES TOO):  United We Stand.

#CommissionEarned

STORIES SET IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE BEST-SELLING ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE SERIES, BLACK TIDE RISING, CREATED BY JOHN RINGO.

The world was brought to its knees by the zombie virus. But humanity has risen from the ashes and has begun to rebuild. Courageous men and women have kindled a fire of hope in the darkness. But mere survival is not enough.

The real challenge is how to keep that future alive. How to not just survive, not just to rebuild, but actually thrive. To tell the universe that mankind can take whatever nature throws against us and not back down.

To stand united.

Stories by John Birmingham, Jody Lynn Nye, Jamie Ibson, Sarah A. Hoyt, Brian Trent, Dave Freer, Griffin Barber, Lydia Sherrer, Mel Todd, Christopher L. Smith, Mike Massa.

ANOTHER NCLA VICTORY: In NCLA Victory, Dep’t of Transportation Scraps Illegitimate Administrative Proceeding vs. gh Package.

Today, the New Civil Liberties Alliance agreed to a stipulated dismissal of its gh Package v. Buttigieg lawsuit challenging the Department of Transportation’s unconstitutional and abusive administrative enforcement regime. NCLA’s federal-court lawsuit successfully pressured DOT to dismiss with prejudice its case against a family-run company, gh Package Product Testing and Consulting, Inc., which tests packages used to transport hazardous chemicals safely. The stipulated dismissal follows DOT’s dismissal of its administrative proceeding against gh Package with prejudice. NCLA celebrates this great victory for its client.

DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) launched the enforcement proceeding against gh last year, claiming the company submitted test reports with minor inaccuracies that violated DOT regulations. DOT hauled gh into its in-house tribunal, where agency officials violate the due process of law by acting as both prosecutor and adjudicator and by depriving defendants of jury trials. DOT’s in-house adjudicators are illegitimate under Article II of the Constitution because neither the President nor the Secretary of Transportation appoints them and they enjoy improper protection from presidential removal. Rather than defend against these constitutional defects on the merits in a real federal court, DOT decided to dismiss its enforcement proceeding.

As a result of NCLA’s recent Supreme Court victory in Michelle Cochran’s fight against the Securities and Exchange Commission, gh was able to challenge DOT’s unlawful tribunal directly in district court before having to endure the entire administrative proceeding. NCLA requested a preliminary injunction in August to stop the unconstitutional proceeding against gh. Just days before PHMSA was to file its final brief opposing that injunction, it withdrew its notice accusing gh of probable wrongdoing, thus ending the unlawful proceeding as NCLA requested. The Administrative Law Judge who oversaw the enforcement proceeding ultimately dismissed it, declaring that “[b]y its decision to take no further action on the allegations,” PHMSA had “in effect failed to meet its burden” to prove its accusations. NCLA is pleased to have vindicated its client in this successful case against DOT’s unlawful enforcement regime, and we hope that defendants in similar proceedings will take note.

I expect that they will. And the viability of proceedings before Administrative Law Judges is growing steadily more dubious.

THESE PEOPLE ARE UTTERLY INSANE:  Colorado’s Supreme Court has removed Trump from the state’s ballot.

GOOD TO KNOW. FIND OUT IF YOUR STATE ENGAGED THESE JOKERS:  Media Lie About This Leftist-Linked Voter Roll ‘Maintenance’ Group To Protect Democrats’ Election Machine.