DISPATCHES FROM BAGHDAD BOBBIE: ‘You … Do Realize He Got Crushed?’: Jessie Watters Calls Out Dem Strategist For Gushing Over Newsom’s Debate Performance.

THE BABY BUST: Can China’s Baby Bust Be Reversed? Don’t Count On It. “Yet even if China somehow does defy past trends and manages to boost its national fertility rates substantially, it will take nearly two decades to pay off as babies born today finally enter the workforce. Meanwhile, its top-heavy ‘constrictive’ population pyramid thanks to a decades-long one-child policy—which was only abandoned in 2016—will mean increasing old age dependency and the social and economic costs that come with it.”

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Yep, We’re Doomed. “Happy Monday morning, everybody. We just hit another milestone on the road to ruin.”

IN THE MAIL: Jewish Priorities: Sixty-Five Proposals for the Future of Our People. #CommissionEarned

MAILING IN A DNA SAMPLE NEVER SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO ME FOR EXACTLY THIS REASON: 23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users. “In an email sent to TechCrunch late on Saturday, 23andMe spokesperson Katie Watson confirmed that hackers accessed the personal information of about 5.5 million people who opted-in to 23andMe’s DNA Relatives feature, which allows customers to automatically share some of their data with others. The stolen data included the person’s name, birth year, relationship labels, the percentage of DNA shared with relatives, ancestry reports and self-reported location.”

STARSHIP TROOPERS, MK 1: Back-saving exosuits may someday be standard-issue gear for troops. “For years, military trade shows have featured intimidating “Iron Man” exosuit prototypes that would seem right at home in a Marvel movie. But the US military is now showing interest in a different kind of exosuit: one that won’t incorporate blast armor or a third machine-gun holding arm, but will save troops’ backs when they are loading artillery rounds.”

For now…

EFFORTS OF THE JUNIOR ANTI-SEX LEAGUE CONTINUE TO ENJOY DOUBLEPLUSGOOD SUCCESS, COMRADES! Gen Z might moan but we need more nudity on TV – otherwise violence will become more normal than sex. Even well-established names in Hollywood are reluctant to film steamy scenes.

ELITE STANDARDS: Nearly 80% of Yale grades were A’s.

BOMBSHELL: Report From First-Ever Audit Shows How Much Power Disney Had in Central Florida. “A newly released report (which I’ve embedded at the end of this column) of the first comprehensive audit of Disney and RCID shows the scope of Disney’s power and influence and how the company used RCID to benefit itself with little to no concern for the region as a whole.”

HMM: “On winter evenings in Rock Creek Park, strollers may observe the President of the United States wading pale and naked into the ice-clogged stream, followed by shivering members of his Cabinet.”

MAYBE AGAINST ELITE UNIVERSITIES: Students at elite universities call for ‘intifada revolution.’

‘DETERRENT’ ACT WOULD REQUIRE BETTER REPORTING OF OVERSEAS GIFTS TO COLLEGES. I don’t think donors usually “buy off” nonprofits or colleges–donors give to institutions who are sympathetic to begin with. But were I running China (for example), I’d want to undermine American higher ed as much as possible, and if that’s driving what’s happened, well, you can’t argue with results.

ANTISEMITISM AT ROOT IS GOD HATE: That’s the contention of Dr. Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), in a conversation with former Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) filling in for Tony Perkins, chief of the Family Research Council (FRC). The Washington Stand’s Joshua Arnold has details and a link.

UPDATE: For some reason I have yet to figure out, I mis-identified former Rep. Hice as representing a North Carolina district instead of a Georgia district. In fact, Hice represented Georgians, not North Cackalackeyians.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Homebuyer conundrum: If mortgage rates fall, bidding wars will follow, expert says.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: George Santos Shouldn’t Have Been Tossed From the GOP Clown Car. “Before we get too far into this, I should make it clear that I don’t think that George Santos is a great guy. I also don’t think he’s history’s greatest monster. Honestly, I wouldn’t leave anything of value unattended around anyone in Congress, so moral posturing by any of them is wearisome.”

THE POOL OF PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE PROFESSORS IS VERY DEEP, SO I DON’T THINK THIS IS A HUGE LOSS: NY Times: Why Tax Prof Neil Buchanan And Other Liberal Tenured Professors Are Leaving Florida’s Public Universities.

The headliner in this story, taxprof Neil Buchanan, shows 7,649 total downloads on SSRN. By contrast, taxprof Paul Caron has 41,665. And, by way of comparison, I have 152,940. Just sayin’.

Anyway, I doubt Ron DeSantis is shedding any tears over this trend.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Amazon will now pay Elon Musk’s SpaceX to get its Project Kuiper satellites into space—and compete against his Starlink service. “In October, Amazon launched its first two satellites for Project Kuiper aboard a UAL Atlas V rocket, which took off from Florida. The company’s goal is to put more than 3,300 satellites into low Earth orbit. Amazon needs to launch half of its Kuiper constellation by 2026 in order to be compliant with its license from the Federal Communications Commission.”

With Blue Origin still stuck in neutral, buying SpaceX lift was inevitable.

POLITICS IS DOWNSTREAM FROM CULTURE: ‘Lady Ballers’ Becomes ‘Biggest Launch’ In Daily Wire History. “‘Lady Ballers’ is a feature length comedy lampooning transgender ideology and the leftist push to make room for men who identify as women in women’s sports.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: How the college degree lost its value: Nearly half of US companies plan to ax Bachelor’s degree requirements – after Walmart, Accenture and IBM led the charge.

CHANGE: Foley & Lardner Is Third Law Firm To Rescind Offer To Incoming Associate Due To Anti-Israel Comments.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Prisoner Who Stabbed Derek Chauvin Is Ex-FBI Informant, Planned Attack as Tribute to BLM.

TRUE: The most serious problem in any organization is the one that cannot be discussed.

AT AMAZON, Shop Holiday Deals. #CommissionEarned

IT WOULD BE NICE IF THE STATE DEPARTMENT WERE PRIMARILY LOYAL TO THE UNITED STATES, AND TO WESTERN CIVILIZATION: The Colonialism Slander in the State Department and Beyond.

An organizer of the dissent cable and author of the accusation that the president whom she serves is complicit in genocide, Sylvia Yacoub is “a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Middle East Affairs for more than two years.” The obscene abuse of the term “genocide” to characterize Israel’s exercise of its right of self-defense is a tell-tale sign that Yacoub subscribes to the colonialism slander. Had she described the jubilantly executed atrocities and proudly proclaimed goal of the Hamas jihadists as genocide, she would have employed the term correctly.

It’s not just a matter of being misinformed. They deliberately run interference for the enemy.

HMM: ‘Everything indicates’ Chinese ship damaged Baltic pipeline on purpose, Finland says.

As the investigation into damage to Baltic Sea critical infrastructure continues, Finland’s Minister of European Affairs Anders Adlercreutz said it’s hard to believe sabotage to the undersea gas pipeline was accidental — or that it happened without Beijing’s knowledge.

“I’m not the sea captain. But I would think that you would notice that you’re dragging an anchor behind you for hundreds of kilometers,” Adlercreutz said in an interview Thursday in Brussels. “I think everything indicates that it was intentional. But of course, so far, nobody has admitted to it.”

Finland and Estonia have been investigating the rupture of the Balticconnector, a 77-kilometer-long gas pipeline that connects the two NATO members beneath the Baltic Sea. The pipeline was damaged around October 7-8, along with two telecoms cables connecting Estonia to Finland and Sweden.

An investigation by Finnish authorities identified as the main suspect Chinese container ship Newnew Polar Bear, which is believed to have dragged its anchor across the Baltic Sea seabed, cutting through the cables and gas lines. The anchor — which weighs 6,000 kilograms — was retrieved a few meters from the site of the damage.

Beijing keeps getting away with these just-short-of-war actions. I’d recommend a little tit-for-tat, but I’m certain this administration would screw it up.