DON’T GET COCKY: Biden Camp and Dem Donors Appear to Give Up on Key 2024 Swing State.

DON SURBER: Irish Lives Matter: It should not take a riot to get that message through. Judging by the government’s response, it may take more than one. “The moment called for a Churchill moment. Prime Minister Leo Varadkar gave them Obama. . . . Well, who are the Irish? Are they not the indigenous people of Ireland?”

HMM: WSJ: Instagram Panders to Pedos? “The Journal sought to determine what Instagram’s Reels algorithm would recommend to test accounts set up to follow only young gymnasts, cheerleaders and other teen and preteen influencers active on the platform. Instagram’s system served jarring doses of salacious content to those test accounts, including risqué footage of children as well as overtly sexual adult videos—and ads for some of the biggest U.S. brands.”

Related: Unsealed complaint says Meta ‘coveted’ under-13s and deceives the public about age enforcement. “Meta ‘routinely violates’ the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) by targeting children and collecting their information without parental consent, according to the complaint. The lawsuit also argues that Meta’s platforms manipulate young users into spending unhealthy amounts of time on the apps, promote body dysmorphia and expose them to potentially harmful content.”

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE: What is going on with UAP disclosure? “If nothing else, this opposition coming from the Republican leadership suggests that all or most of the allegations coming from UFO whistleblower David Grusch are probably accurate. After all, if this was all fictional or some sort of government psyop campaign, why would anyone be bothered by legislation intended to expose it? If it were all a hoax, why not allow the perpetrators to be exposed and then move on with the rest of your business? That doesn’t make sense.”

Some earlier thoughts here.

NO. NEXT QUESTION? WSJ: Does The IRS Have Authority To Circumvent Congressional Tax Policy With Tax Cuts By Administrative Fiat?

SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: Saturday’s November snowfall was Topeka’s heaviest in 135 years. How much snow fell here?

DOES DUKE REALLY NEED ‘ECONOMIC DIVERSITY?’ We had it “back in my day” before it was 80 grand a year… (grumble)

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: From the Shoulders of Giants: The World Has had Enough of Klaus F***ing Schwab.

CYBER MONDAY DEALS in Men’s Fashion. #CommissionEarned

DIVIDE AND CONQUER, THEN UNITE AND RULE: Lonely on campus: Students are siloed, silenced. “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideology has made it harder for students to make friends with those who share similar interests but different ‘identities,’ he writes. They’re encouraged to focus on their differences, segregate themselves and see unintentional slights as ‘microaggressions.'”

UNSURPRISING: Gen Z wants action movies, not woke storylines: UCLA study.

Gen Z would rather see movies that show two men fighting each other, rather than kissing one another, according to a new survey from the University of California Los Angeles.

The younger, college-aged generation ranked superhero movies and action films high in their interest list, along with “hopeful, uplifting content with people beating the odds” and “people with lives like my own” according to the survey.

Meanwhile, “Nonbinary and LGBTQIA+ Identities” is ranked at the bottom, according to the survey from UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers.

The survey of 1,500 people also found Gen Z is not interested in sexual content, which may explain their lack of interest in LGBT identity-focused programming.

Respondents reported that they use entertainment media “to escape and take my mind off of things.”

As the Ayatollah said about Islam, there is no fun in wokeness.

Plus: “Storylines about political content such as ‘racial minorities,’ ‘climate change,’ and ‘immigration’ do not make the top 10 ranking.”

RABBI MICHAEL BARCLAY: The Insidious Reason Why Hamas Is Releasing Hostages.

CYBER MONDAY DEAL: Kindle Paperwhite (8 GB). #CommissionEarned

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: As Dept. of Ed launches investigation into Cornell, still no word on consequences for prof ‘exhilarated’ by Hamas terrorism. I would say that we don’t punish speech in this country but you know, we do under the new rules the left has made. My own opinion is that people shouldn’t be fired even for repulsive speech unless it relates to their ability to do their jobs. But that’s not how things work anymore. If Amy Wax can face firing for insensitivity, then . . .

SO NOW THEY WANT THEM BACK: Sarah Holliday of The Washington Stand has everything you need to know about how and why the Pentagon suddenly wants those thousands of service members who were discharged for refusing the COVID vaccine to return.

Class-action lawsuits are in the offing, and, while I am generally not enthusiastic about trial lawyers (perennially among the most generous donors to Democrats) and class-action litigation, it would not break my heart if these succeed quickly and spectacularly.

HMM: Elon Musk warns ‘something scared’ OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever as CEO Sam Altman’s return fails to answer key questions.

Elon Musk played a big role in persuading Ilya Sutskever to join OpenAI as chief scientist in 2015. Now the Tesla CEO wants to know what he saw there that scared him so much.

Sutskever, whom Musk recently described as a “good human” with a “good heart”—and the “linchpin for OpenAI being successful”—served on the OpenAI board that fired CEO Sam Altman two Fridays ago; indeed, Sutskever informed Altman of his dismissal. Since then, however, the board has been revamped and Altman reinstated, with investors led by Microsoft pushing for the changes.

Sutskever himself backtracked on Monday, writing on X, “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI.”

But Musk and other tech elites—including ones who mocked the board for firing Altman—are still curious about what Sutskever saw.

Late on Thursday, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who has ridiculed “doomers” who fear AI’s threat to humanity, posted to X, “Seriously though — what did Ilya see?” Musk replied a few hours later, “Yeah! Something scared Ilya enough to want to fire Sam. What was it?”

That remains a mystery. The board gave only vague reasons for firing Altman. Not much has been revealed since.

I suppose we’ll learn what really happened when and if Skynet decides to tell us.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Morning Briefing: About That ‘Migrant’ Thing. “We don’t need to resurrect Freud and Jung to figure out why Democrats love to cast a soft glow around criminal activity.”

FASTER, PLEASE: The Implosion of the Climate Left. “At the end of March 2021, Alex O’Keefe, among the first Black hires of the Sunrise Movement and a member of management, dropped a long manifesto, signed by three others, into the organization’s Slack account, indicting the leadership for a culture of white supremacy.”

CDR SALAMANDER: American Naval Forces (with a Japanese assist) Capture Pirates. “It is a welcome sight to see Japan step by step become more of a player in the international security arena. They are great allies and responsible professionals. CTF-151 has been just the right arena for them to get used to it. . . . The note about the PRC ships not responding it telling. CTF-151 is a counter piracy force. If you are not going to respond to cries for help from merchantmen from piracy, then why are you actually there? Well, see the prior paragraph.”

Related:

Highway robbery, piracy etc was a common feature of the ancient world to which we are returning at the edges of Western civilization.https://t.co/5Yz4AmSK0V

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) November 27, 2023

As dependent as China is on sea commerce, you’d think they’d take a harder line on piracy. Unless the pirates basically work for them or something.

CHANGE: Has the bubble burst for America’s Realtors? Commission rates could be slashed by a THIRD after landmark lawsuit – and experts fear 80% of real estate license holders could quit.

AMERICA: Boom: Majority now lives in gun-owning households.

IT’S ALL SMOKE AND MIRRORS: Hamas Busted on Yesterday’s Hostage Release Tape, Makes Sure There’s No Audio on Today’s.

The only reason they get away with so much is that the press is largely complicit.

UPDATE: See, e.g., Reuters:

Reuters knows that the hostages being released by Hamas aren’t soldiers (neither are the terrorists Hamas is getting), but they casually drop the term into their headline to fundamentally alter your perception of what is happening. A POW exchange is a lot different than the negotiated release of people held hostage for 50 days–women and children who have nothing to do with the war except by being victims of evil terrorists.

Using “soldiers” was a conscious choice. Reuters knew who was being released, knew their circumstances, knew how they were captured, and knew that they weren’t “released” but ransomed. They framed the story to manipulate the audience.

People weren’t fooled, except those who wanted to be. They received so much criticism that they deleted the headline and issued a non-apology apology, but this was not a mistake made in the fog of war. All the facts are established and well-understood. Reuters just chose to lie.

As they so frequently do. And to be clear, this isn’t a good-faith difference in perception, but a deliberate effort to deceive.

GOOD: Conservative Party Humiliates Trudeau.

LET THEM FREAK OUT: As the Left Freaks Out, Geert Wilders Vows He ‘Will Be Prime Minister.’

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Biden Admin Gave $3 Billion Loan to Solar Company Accused of Scamming Elderly.