TERRORIST STATE: Iranian Commander Bragged of Unilateral Authority to Shoot Down Planes. “In 2016, Iran said even the youngest officers do not need authorization to launch attacks.”

IN A WORD? FRACKING: How the Oil Market Learned to Live With a Middle East in Flames.

Is there anything it can’t do?

VIDEO: Hide The Decline: How Climate Change Data Was Faked.

BREAKING: Cory Booker Drops Out of 2020 Race.

“EMBARRASSMENT” IS NOT THE WORD I’D USE: Judge Jeanine: Public humiliation of ‘Pelosi and her Democrat caucus’ is ‘an embarrassment to watch.’

“Schadenfreude” comes much closer.

TEXAS: Hero parishioner who stopped shooter will receive state’s highest civilian honor.

GOOD ADVICE AT ANY TIME: Care About Australia’s Wildlife: Please Don’t Give Money To PETA.

Well, if we begin to take a look at PETA’s Australia chapter, we can imagine why they are not first in line to help those poor koalas and kangaroos we keep hearing about on the news. For example, PETA’s Australia chapter received over $49 million in contributions in 2019, but only less than 1 percent went into actually helping troubled animals. The rest of the money, in true PETA fashion, was used on advertising, public disturbances, paying off celebrity spokespersons, and lobbying politicians and businesses into getting what they want and they want one thing, and one thing only-total animal “liberations”. This would mean no zoos, no aquariums, no responsible meat, or dairy consumption, no pets, no wildlife conservation efforts that require rehabilitation or breeding programs, and no use of animals for therapeutic purposes. PETA is also against the use of guide dogs for those who are blind. If that is not enough to throw you over the edge about who PETA is, they once compared farm animals to Jewish Holocaust victims in order to convince the public to switch over to a vegan lifestyle. In addition, they also have long ties to eco-terrorists groups such as the Animal Liberation Front, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and the Earth Liberation Front.

They don’t care about animals so much as they hate humanity.

SAY ANYTHING… Crazy Lady Alert: Pelosi Says McConnell Is a Russian ‘Accomplice.’

NEW YORK SUN: Nancy Pelosi’s Catch-22.

The first thing for the Senate to do when it takes up the war powers resolution just passed by the House is to give it a proper name. The Sun proposes the “Enemy Emboldenment Act of 2020.” For the resolution is designed to ensure that the Supreme Leader of Iran and his camarilla are not under any misapprehension that the Democrats support our GIs or their constitutional commander-in-chief.

One can see the Democrats’ logic. If the enemy thought that the Democrats and Republicans were united in respect of the war, the Iranians might decide to retreat. That, in turn, could have the deleterious effect of interfering with our election by creating the impression that President Trump was winning the war. In other words, there’s a real possibility that an Iranian retreat could throw the election to the GOP.

This is evident from the text of the Enemy Emboldenment Act, which contains a lot of palaver designed to obscure its purpose.

Read the whole thing.

RASMUSSEN: Even Fewer Expect Trump’s Removal From Office. “Only 12% now feel it’s more likely that Trump will be impeached and removed from office before serving his first full term. That’s down from a high of 29% when Rasmussen Reports first asked this question in late December 2017 and marks a new low.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Iranian Protesters Let Loose With Soleimani Hate. “Those of us in the sane part of the world know that Soleimani was a murderous monster who could only morph into a sweetheart in the minds of American liberals, who still think that Teddy Kennedy was some kind of hero.”

Related, from Facebook:

LET’S HOPE: Iran plane crash: Why this could be a watershed moment.

On the international front, the downing of flight PS752 is unlikely to result in further escalation and might even provide an opportunity for defusing some of the tensions which have been simmering over the past few months.

On the domestic front, however, this tragic accident could have much deeper repercussions.

Just days before the flight crashed, Iran displayed an unprecedented level of unity and popular support when millions of people poured on to the streets all over the country to mourn the death of Soleimani.

This seemed to indicate that, when faced with the external threat of military confrontation, Iranians from different political and economic backgrounds could come together and put aside their divisions.

But all the very smartest people assured me that the Suleimani strike would result in a wave of anti-American nationalism.

ASTROTURF: An uncritical Teen Vogue story about Facebook caused bewilderment about whether it’s sponsored content before the entire article vanished.

Teen Vogue published “How Facebook Is Helping Ensure the Integrity of the 2020 Election.” It’s a 2,000-plus-word story comprising a series of interviews with various senior Facebook employees about how the Silicon Valley tech giant is working to avoid nefarious political activity in the US’s coming presidential election.

The positive tone of the piece, and lack of byline indicating who wrote it, led some on Twitter to speculate that it was a piece of sponsored content — that is, an article paid for and overseen by Facebook to promote itself.

This suspicion was seemingly confirmed when, some time after publishing, Teen Vogue appended a note to the top of the story, reading: “Editor’s note: This is sponsored editorial content.”

Facebook instead denied that it was sponsored content, saying it was just a regular article, and the note disappeared from the top of the story again.

What a mess.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for January 13, 2019. “Williamson drops Out, Steyer eclipses Warren in two early states, the billionaire boys keep shoveling wheelbarrows full of cash into the fire, and Biden can’t tell the difference between Iran and Iraq.”

IRAN: “You Killed Our Geniuses” – Regime Crackdown Intensifies As Iranians Flood Streets In Third Day Of Protest. “During the protests, which erupted out of anger over the regime’s initial lies about Flight 752 (it initially insisted that a “mechanical error” was responsible despite video evidence suggesting a missile strike), Iranian security forces fired both live ammunition and tear gas into crowds of demonstrators furious over the government’s denials.”

UNEXPECTEDLY! Fecal Bacteria In California’s Waterways Increases With Homeless Crisis.

TOOL: Facebook Bug Reveals That Greta Thunberg’s Posts May Not Be Her Own.

I LIKE TO THINK OF IT AS OVERACHIEVING: “Taking a long-haul flight generates more carbon emissions than the average person in dozens of countries around the world produces in a whole year, a new Guardian analysis has found.”

Cool. Now do private charters.

WINNING: Trump Boom Continues: Unemployment Remains at Record Low.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY: The Nugs Sauce Or Your Life.

And for our VIP members: Nancy Pelosi Might Be Killing the Dems’ White House Chances.

If you’ve been thinking of joining, that VODKAPUNDIT promo code is good for a nice little discount. It’s no damaged screw extractor, but it’s still something.

DAVID HARSANYI: Pelosi’s Embarrassing Impeachment Blunder.

A new piece in Time magazine does shed some light on the thought process behind Pelosi’s decision to refuse to hand over articles of impeachment to a Senate whose majority doesn’t want them. One of the most interesting nuggets in the piece isn’t that Pelosi — portrayed as courageous risk-taker — had gotten the bright idea from CNN; it’s that she specifically got it from noted felon John Dean, Nixon’s former White House lawyer. Now, Dean is often portrayed as a patriotic, whistleblowing impeachment expert — which is true insofar as he planned the Watergate coverup, and then informed on everyone whom he conspired with after they were caught. His real expertise is cashing in on criminality for the past 50 years.

Surely Pelosi, blessed with preternatural political instincts, wouldn’t rely on Dean’s advice? Surely Pelosi wasn’t browbeaten into doing this by podcast bros and talking heads on America’s least popular major cable news network?

Nah. They’re both incapable of embarrassment.

THANKS FOR SHARING: Elizabeth Warren: ‘I never wash my face.’

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Curaçao can no longer handle the number of Venezuelans.

FASTER, PLEASE: Lawsuit Aims to Protect British Children From Experimental Transgender Drugs.

NBC REPORTS THIS AS THOUGH IT’S A GOOD THING: Sweden’s environmental education is building a generation of Greta Thunbergs. “We tried to create green revolutionaries, make them think in a specific way.”

Lenin: “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”