UNEXPECTEDLY: Who Could Have Seen This Coming? Hospitals That Laid Off Unvaccinated Staff Now ‘Overwhelmed.’

BATTLESWARM BLOG WITH MY FAVORITE HEADLINE OF THE YEAR: Faster, Blue Cities! Kill! Kill! “Crime rates will continue to spiral until Democrats become more concerned with protecting law-abiding citizens from violent felons than earning social justice brownie points, or until the citizens of blue cities finally reach their breaking points and are willing to throw the bums out.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Jussie Smollett Should Spend the Rest of His Pathetic Life In Prison. “Smollett’s low-grade intellect allowed him to believe that a story about an attack by random MAGA dudes IN CHICAGO would be something he could sell to the public.”

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Methodist pastor relieved of duties after performing as drag queen.

GLEICHSCHALTUNG: ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Boat Wins Boat Parade Contest, Is Then Disqualified Because of Liberal Tears.

BREAKING: Jussie Smollett Declared Guilty on 5 of 6 Counts.

GLEICHSCHALTUNG: Titleist Goes Woke, Bans ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ From Personalized Golf Balls.

OH, THAT WAR ON CHRISTMAS: Fox Christmas tree arson suspect released without bail.

THE INTERNET OF VULNERABLE THINGS: Amazon’s outage just locked people out of their homes, scrambled their refrigerators, and shut off their Christmas lights.

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

Hot takes, cold drinks.

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: California Considers Funding Abortion Tourism as Part of Plan to Become ‘Sanctuary’ If Roe Overturned.

HE’S CAUSED THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Newsom Abandons Struggling Californians to Take Yet Another Personal Trip.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: Biden’s Nord Stream 2 Move Opens The Door To A Russian Invasion Into Ukraine.

In May, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. would waive sanctions placed on the pipeline by former President Donald Trump. Biden gave a final stamp of approval to the $11 billion project, which is operated by the Russian state-run firm Gazprom, on July 21 after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Biden made a preemptive concession at the beginning of his administration without going to the table and talking with Putin,” former Under Secretary of Defense Robert Wilkie, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Wilkie added that once the natural gas begins to flow from Russia to Europe via Nord Stream, the European nations relying on it for their energy needs will be less inclined to protect Ukraine from potential Russian aggression. (RELATED: Dozens Of Republicans Slam Biden Administration For Considering Crude Oil Export Ban)

“Once the natural gas starts to flow, you have just tethered Western European comfort and prosperity to Moscow,” said Wilkie, who also led the Department of Veterans Affairs from July 2018 until January.

“The Ukrainians have figured correctly that the Europeans are going to be neutered, they’re not going to want to turn off that flow for economic reasons,” he continued. “And that leaves the United States, and perhaps the Eastern European friends of America, particularly Poland, as their only buttress against Russian adventurism.”

I still don’t think Russia will invade Ukraine, mostly for domestic reasons.

But if Putin perceives Biden as weak enough that an invasion would obliterate NATO once and for all — then who knows?

YEAH, NO: Fauci Wants You to Demand Proof of Vaccination for Holiday Guests.

SUSTAINABILITY: New York school spending hits record high. “Preliminary data on the 2019-2020 school year released by the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that the state of New York now spends more than $30,000 per K-12 student, further entrenching its position as the most expensive public education system in the country. Despite this new public school spending milestone, falling enrollment and dissatisfied parents indicate education dollars aren’t doing enough to help kids.”

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Omicron Fever — I’ve Got It! “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so desperate to catch omicron that I’m going to start licking doorknobs in Wuhan or eating all my lunches at the local Bat on a Stick.”

HMM: Just Who Is Bankrolling The Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation?

A few weeks ago there was Texas gubernatorial poll showing Beto O’Rourke running neck and neck with Greg Abbott. I took a deeper look to see how skewed the crosstabs were, but they don’t appear to have an actual numerical breakdown of Republican vs. Democratic voters. (The MSM loves oversampling Democrats for polls.)

But then I got interested in just who was behind the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation.

The news isn’t encouraging.

The Left is just going to keep hammering away at Texas.

WELL, GOOD: Trump Was Right: UV Light ‘Disinfectant’ Injected Into the Body Shows Promise in COVID Patients.

COLORADO: Douglas County school board votes to drop universal mask requirement. “The resolution allows parents to decide if their kids should wear masks.”

“Allows.”

CHRIS QUEEN: How a Never-Used Provision in the Constitution Could Revolutionize Congress. “For 233 years, no state legislature has tried to invoke that provision in Article V, but that may change. A group of conservative state legislators who met at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s policy conference last week is considering using Article V to develop amendments for a balanced federal budget and term limits for Congress.”

TIM MCMILLAN: The government’s real problem with UFOs.

Given the prevailing taboos associated with UFOs, there is assuredly a wide range of conflicting views within the Pentagon and greater U.S. intelligence community on these reported sightings of mysterious aerial objects. Equally likely, these conflicting stances have caused bureaucratic battles that make GUNMAN look tame. Of course, this is just considering UAP from the vantage of national defense and intelligence. But these enigmatic incidents don’t really fit politely in the conventional national security box.

In fact, given the legal restrictions limiting the Pentagon and intelligence community’s ability to operate domestically to investigate UAP sightings effectively, it would require involvement by a host of other federal agencies. Agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI would all need to be involved. Considering many claims of UAP sightings near nuclear assets, the Department of Energy would likewise need to join the party.

Not only does the FAA, Homeland Security, FBI, and Energy Department not fall under the Pentagon’s purview, but each represents its own separate branch of the executive government. This doesn’t even consider the other more scientifically focused agencies such as NASA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, adding two more independent executive departments. Considering the difficulty in getting two agencies from the same organization to work together, the idea of effectively coordinating multiple independent departments to investigate a topic that already has plenty of naysayers seems like a daunting, if not impossible, task.

I found the link to this article via someone on Twitter who compared Washington to Byzantium, but really, that’s unfair to the comparatively sleek and efficient Byzantine government.

IT’S THE FEEL-GOOD HIT OF THE SEASON: Schadenfreudelicious: Hillary Weeps Through Her Wine Haze While Reading 2016 Victory Speech for ‘MasterClass.’ “Imagine my delight when a video of Mrs. Clinton bawling her way through some of what would have been her 2016 victory speech surfaced on my Twitter feed. She is one of the latest additions to MasterClass, offering her expertise on — I kid you not — resilience.”

CHUTZPAH: Jew-Hating Rep. Pressley Introduces Bill To Punish Rep. Boebert For Islamophobia.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Commie Democrat Psychopaths Are In Crime Denial. “The farther left one of them goes, the more removed from reality they become. For the longest time, I thought that they were all merely pathological liars. Most are, of course, but I am now beginning to believe that some of them are in the midst of a full psychotic break.”

THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT? Critics Savage Progressive Climate Change Satire ‘Don’t Look Up.’ “McKay once dabbled primarily in mainstream comedies like ‘Anchorman,’ ‘Step Brothers’ and ‘The Other Guys.’ Now, he fuses his progressive politics with his art, and the results are dividing critics who otherwise agree with his views on most issues.”