JOE BIDEN’S RETURN TO DECENCY: John Kerry Holds $1 Million Stake in Equity Fund Linked To Uyghur Labor Abuse.

On the one hand, we’re saying to [China], ‘You have to do more to help deal with the climate,’” Kerry said last month. “And on the other hand, their solar panels are being sanctioned, which makes it harder for them to sell them.”

Kerry holds “over $1,000,000” in Hillhouse, according to a financial disclosure report he filed at the beginning of the year.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) told the Free Beacon that Kerry’s investments are in conflict with his role as climate envoy. Rubio said Kerry has been actively lobbying against his bill that would bar Chinese imports made with slave labor, which passed the Senate with bipartisan support but has stalled in the House.

Communist China is guilty of far worse abuses than South Africa ever was, but Beijing keeps all the right palms greased.

SAUSAGE-MAKING: Manchin Gets Closer to ‘Yes’ on Spending Bill as Radicals Fume. “In short, the Build Back Better bill has gone from being a Sanders creation that funds the whole of the radical Democratic policy movement this century to something much different.”

CHANGE: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott makes good on border security threat, authorizes state National Guard to make arrests of illegal aliens in historic first.

HE’S PREDICTABLY WRONG AND HECTORING ALL AT ONCE: Gender Fluid Teen Raped Girl, Judge Rules, After Obama Dismissed ‘Fake Outrage’ at School Boards.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT THE PJ MEDIA MOTHERSHIP:

Two plus two equals four, every time.

Related: Not the Bee has been locked out of Twitter, too, with no explanation given.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Enjoy the Most Expensive Thanksgiving Dinner Ever. “It seems like only yesterday that Insanity Wrap was basking in the glory of the 16¢ we saved on Independence Day by serving up the lamest celebration eats since Moby’s Very Vegan Christmas TV holiday special.”

Plus:

• Don’t worry, miss, it doesn’t actually grow back
• #BeagleLivesMatter
• Biden coughs up another gem

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

GERMANY: Muslim migrant who murdered three while screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ is not guilty, not an ‘Islamist.’

AJ KAUFMAN: Parents Slam Obama Over ‘Fake Outrage’ Claims at Rally. “That is the most tone-deaf statement I have ever heard. To say that this is trumped-up as a political thing is laughable.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Iran Behind Drone Attack On U.S. Base In Syria, U.S. Officials Say.

More: GOP Lawmakers Concerned Biden Removed Sanctions To Appease Iran.

Related: Iran nuclear talks ‘on life support’ as Tehran drags feet.

And: Oil Erases Gains After Topping $85 as Iran Nuclear Talks Near.

I’m old enough to remember when Iran was fairly effectively contained and oil was cheap, which makes me just barely old enough to also remember when Donald Trump was President.

DON’T GET COCKY: Youngkin Campaign Delivers Body Blow to Terry McAuliffe in New Ad.

CHEAPER AND EASIER JUST TO GET YOUR ADVERSARY TO APPOINT A POLITICAL HACK AS SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION: The Chinese military is thinking about how to stealthily destroy enemy ports and just set off a big explosion to see how it might work.

WELL, SHE WOULD KNOW: AOC Says Fascism Is Coming — if an Incumbent Democrat Is Re-Elected Mayor?

GOVERNMENTS ARE MANDATING THESE THINGS BEFORE THEY’RE FULLY UNDERSTOOD: Electric vehicles can be more expensive to fuel than their internal combustion engine counterparts.

Fueling comparisons between EVs and ICE vehicles must account for all costs. The cost of fueling EVs and ICE vehicles include the cost of fuel (or electricity), as well as the cost of pump or charger, and road taxes levied on drivers. Most of these are bundled into the retail price of gasoline for ICE vehicles. The comparable cost of fueling an EV include the following five categories:

1. Commercial and residential electric power costs: Commercial chargers often impose per kWh fees that are double or triple
that of residential electric power costs.

2. EV registration taxes: In many states, EV drivers need to pay additional auto registration taxes for the construction and maintenance of roads.

3. Cost of chargers and their installation: EV buyers typically receive a Level 1 (L1) charger along with their auto purchase. These typically use a standard home electrical outlet and pro- vide only a trickle charge for an EV. Sellers of EVs typically encourage the purchase of an optional Level 2 (L2) charger. Many owners that rely primarily on home-charging, purchas and install an L2 charger that uses a special electrical circuit.

4. Deadhead miles: EV drivers incur costs of driving miles to a commercial charger for the sole purpose of charging. By com- parison, there are over 100,000 gas stations in the US.

5. Time costs of charging: EV drivers also spend significant time finding and driving to a commercial charger, setting up the charger, and waiting for the charging process to complete. By comparison, finding a gas station and refueling the vehicle is relatively quick.

Lots to chew on in this study but the main takeaway is that it’s hard to apply caveat emptor when authorities tip the scales with tax incentives, mandates, and phase-outs.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Maybe Democrats Just Don’t Like Their Kids Very Much. “Maybe the conservative ‘phony outrage’ stuff is easy for the Dems to believe because they really don’t give a crap about their children.”

HMM: At Long Last, China’s J-20 Jet Has a New Engine.

At the Zhuhai airshow in China this week, China showed off its J-20 jet, known as the “Mighty Dragon.” According to a report by Eurasian Times, the fighter jets sported a Chinese-made WS-10C engine.

This is significant, the report said, because of what it says about China’s ability to make its own parts. Until now, the only countries on the UN Security Council that produce “capable and reliable” jet engines were the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.

“This indicates a high degree of confidence among the country’s aerospace engineering community and the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). WS-10C is part of their concerted effort to initiate a clean break from Russian power plants,” the report said. “Jet engines are an area where even the reverse-engineering expert Chinese have not been able to master, baring the sheer complexity and sophistication of the technology that countries guard so fanatically.”

The South China Morning Post had reported back in January that Chinese engineers had been “directed to modify the engine on the J-20 until it matches America’s F-22 Raptor.”

But have they? China’s rocket engineering has come a long way in a very short time, but not even the Soviets/Russians were able to build a jet engine to western spec.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Why the Great Power Governments Are Cracking Down on Big Tech. “If Big Tech loses its moderation power, how can they stop the populists next time? Mark Zuckerberg is offering the Beltway a deal. Give us a de facto monopoly and we’ll keep moderating things in your favor. ‘Essentially what Facebook wants is for Section 230 to be modified so that companies are held liable for illegal content on their platforms unless they can demonstrate that they have systems in place for identifying it.’ Only the qualified — ahem ‘us’ — need apply, and we’ll take care of you.”

GOOD LORD: Florida father furious to discover his 7-year-old daughter’s school has been TYING a mask to her face with rope every day. She has Down syndrome.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Carrying Biden Signs, Massive Migrant Caravan Pushes Toward U.S.

NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT TO DO: Pete Buttigieg Decides to Go to War With Tucker Carlson. “The country is currently facing its worst supply-chain crisis since the 1970s and Buttigieg, whose job is ostensibly to fix the situation, is making the media rounds to talk about how great it is that he disappeared for multiple months. The mind truly boggles, and it shows how little is expected from these mediocre government bureaucrats. Buttigieg failed up as an unimpressive mayor of a small town, because he checked the right identity boxes. Now, we are getting an eyeful of just how incapable he is.”

HEADLINES THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN MONTHS AGO: Clogged California Ports Are Finally Getting Some Much-Needed Help. Will It Be Enough?

COLORADO: Bizarre claims in multiple school board races funded by teachers unions; over $300K kicked in.

A group that originally reported more than $200,000 in expenditures supporting 20 school board candidates, while making bizarre claims about their opponents, has finally revealed its source of funding with its last filing to the Secretary of State’s office.

A combined five teachers’ unions and union affiliated groups have kicked in more than $300,000 to “Students Deserve Better” to support their choices while opposing the more conservative candidates: The Aurora Council for Teachers and Students ($7,000), the Aurora Education Association ($20,000), the Colorado Fund for Children and Public Education ($257,000), the Denver Classroom Teachers Association ($75,000), and the Poudre Education Association ($25,000).

The Independent Expenditure Committee (IEC) recently began campaign mailings to voters in six school districts: Aurora, Cherry Creek, Denver, Jefferson County (Jeffco), Poudre (Fort Collins) and Thompson (Loveland).

Those mailers listed some bizarre accusations against the opposing candidates, including that electing them would “needlessly” expose both students and staff to “deadly harm,” while listing identical platforms for all 20 union-backed candidates, despite the districts being separated by hundreds of square miles, demographics and needs.

100% astroturf.

LET’S GO BRANDON! Washington Post Issues the ‘Greatest Correction’ Ever. “None other than Donald Trump Jr calls the Washington Post’s ‘Let’s Go Brandon!’ walkback ‘the greatest correction in the history of journalism,’ and who am I to disagree?”

VIDEO: Anti-Mandate Protesters Storm Barclays Center, Demanding Nets Let Kyrie Irving Play.

THEN WE SHOULD DISMANTLE IT AND REPLACE IT WITH SOMETHING MUCH SMALLER AND LESS DANGEROUS: Biden Administration Finds ‘Structural Racism’ Throughout Government.

ANTITRUST: Did Google Break The Law? “I know that headline is more than a little ambiguous, as Google has probably broken multiple laws, if only because they’re so big and there are so many laws. But ‘Did Google break the law using sneaky, underhanded means to carry out anti-competitive trade practices to kill off an alternative ad allocating system called ‘header bidding’ because it threatened to damage one of its biggest revenue streams’ is way too long for a blog post title.”

Much more at the link.