NICE: Pentagon And Lockheed Martin Agree To Big Cost Reduction On F-35 Fighters. “The agreement, disclosed October 29, will reduce the unit cost of all three variants by an average of 12.7% across three production lots. The most common variant, to be used by the Air Force and nearly a dozen overseas allies, will cost less than $80 million to manufacture—below the cost of buying a new F-16, the legacy fighter F-35 is supposed to replace.”

HMM: Will Trump Save Florida GOP From Unprecedented Fundraising Failure?

Are disgruntled Florida Republican Party officials taking out their grudges on the state party’s fundraising efforts? That’s what it looks like if we are to believe reports that an annual fundraising dinner was canceled due to a lack of interest.

Discord within the state party looks to be coming from the lack of enthusiasm for newly hired Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) executive director Peter O’Rourke. O’Rourke isn’t well-known and trusted yet. Former executive director Jennifer Locetta was fired though she was both well-known and liked. O’Rourke was investigated for rampant abuses in the Department of Veterans Affairs whistleblower office, the office he previously ran. The grassroots are outraged. Governor DeSantis and RPOF Chairman Joe Gruters were caught off-guard by the bombshell findings of the investigation. The internal chaos is reported to be creating a lack of enthusiasm among party members and tickets sales to the 2019 Statesman’s Dinner, a major fundraiser in Orlando are non-existent. The dinner was canceled and rescheduled for December 7. Did the investigation report depress sales and interest? The organizers couldn’t even secure a keynote speaker.

GOP fundraising has been off the charts nationally, but, well, Florida is weird.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Could Mr. Rogers exist today?

There’s something else that’s changed today, and it’s where Rogers would struggle the most had he come of age in 2019.

Imagine a children’s show where a straight white male, a Presbyterian minister no less, told children and their parents how to best lead their lives. This character served up old-school advice about loving one another and processing difficult moments, like the death of a loved one.

His skin color alone might cause outrage among the usual suspects. His faith may similarly be targeted. Presbyterians are far more open, and inclusive, than other Christian belief systems. The modern Presbyterian church supports gay marriage. What if Rogers had different views 10 years ago? Twenty years ago?

The woke mob perpetually hounds Chik-Fil-A restaurants because they disagree with the founder’s Biblical beliefs. In today’s climate, anything is possible.

“Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” famously tackled racism, nuclear war and divorce. You could imagine him exploring gay rights in modern times. But what about trans rights? Drag queens? Islamophobia?

Social pressure would mount until his show’s producers delivered storylines tied to those specific themes. Heaven help Team Mr. Rogers if they made a misstep, real or imagined, in the eyes of select critics.

They’ll probably nominate Tom Hanks for an Oscar for playing him, but they’d drive him off the air today if they could.

CHARMING: Kelly Clarkson Changes ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ Lyrics Into Pro-Choice Propaganda.

ONE LITTLE LENIN: Adam Schiff Accused of Witness Tampering in ‘Soviet-Style’ Impeachment Inquiry.

HARSH, BUT FAIR: Obama Successfully Hunted Trump Campaign Aides Instead of Terrorists.

In 2016, rather than successfully hunting down terrorists including Mueller’s captors, Obama and his top national security officials hunted down Trump campaign aides. Baghdadi’s death should be a reminder—an infuriating one at that—of how the Obama administration, particularly the CIA and FBI, squandered vital resources in service to a politically motivated investigation into Trump and his presidential campaign rather than focusing their efforts on the legitimate threats facing the country.

Trump alluded to that malfeasance in his press conference on Sunday. “When we use our intelligence correctly, what we can do is incredible,” Trump said while commending intelligence operatives who helped locate the ISIS madman. “When we waste our time with intelligence that hurts our country because we had poor leadership at the top, that’s not good.”

Trump, of course, was referring to former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former FBI Director James Comey, the “Praetorian Guard” that laid the trap for Team Trump in 2016. As ISIS continued its murderous rampage in the Middle East and parts of Europe that year—including the Bastille Day truck attack in France that killed 86 people and wounded hundreds more—the most powerful intelligence professionals in the United States were surveilling Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

Politics is just war by other means for these Democrats.

REALLY PUTTING THE “TRACKER” INTO “FITNESS TRACKER”: Google Is Looking to Buy Fitbit, Which Is Good News for Shareholders but Terrible News for Users’ Privacy.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: The Moderate Sins of Kyrsten Sinema. “I moved back to Arizona several months before Sinema was elected and I obviously didn’t vote for her, but have to say that I have been surprised by her so far, largely because she’s not a raging progressive. She’s an anomaly in a time when most Democrats are lurching so far leftward that they couldn’t find the center using GPS and Sherpa guides.”

MICHAEL BECKLEY: The United States Should Fear a Faltering China. “Beijing’s Assertiveness Betrays Its Desperation.”

China’s economic woes will make it a less competitive rival in the long term but a greater threat to the United States today. When rising powers have suffered such slowdowns in the past, they became more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad. China seems to be headed down just such a path.

In March 2007, at the height of a years-long economic boom, then Premier Wen Jiabao gave an uncharacteristically gloomy press conference. China’s growth model, Wen warned, had become “unsteady, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable.” The warning was prescient: in the years since, China’s official gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate has dropped from 15 percent to six percent—the slowest rate in 30 years. The country’s economy is now experiencing its longest deceleration of the post-Mao era.

A growth rate of six percent could still be considered spectacular. By way of contrast, consider that the U.S. economy has been stuck at a rate of around two percent. But many economists believe that China’s true rate is roughly half the official figure. Moreover, GDP growth does not necessarily translate into greater wealth. If a country spends billions of dollars on infrastructure projects, its GDP will rise. But if those projects consist of bridges to nowhere, the country’s stock of wealth will remain unchanged or even decline. To accumulate wealth, a country needs to increase its productivity—a measure that has actually dropped in China over the last decade. Practically all of China’s GDP growth has resulted from the government’s pumping capital into the economy. Subtract government stimulus spending, some economists argue, and China’s economy may not be growing at all.

Lots to chew on here, but it’s worth your time.

CHANGE: NCAA Clears Way for Athletes to Earn Endorsement Money.

The move came amid growing pressure from legislators, a month after California passed a law requiring schools in the state to allow college athletes to earn endorsement money, and represents a stark shift in policy.

In a concession the NCAA had long resisted, the organization’s governing board directed its three divisions to immediately consider changing the rules governing such benefits for athletes, and to make any such changes no later than January 2021.

We must embrace change,” said Michael Drake, chair of the board and president of Ohio State University.

The details of the new policy are yet to be determined. The NCAA said it must be “in a manner consistent with the collegiate model,” making clear that compensation for performance or participation is still prohibited, among other conditions. But the directive nonetheless paves the way for a scrambled financial landscape in college sports.

College athletes, who have remained largely cut off from the profits of what has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry, may soon be able to earn related income without jeopardizing their eligibility to compete.

It isn’t that I’m against this move, it’s just that I’m wondering how long before they’ll dispense with the fiction that all of these college athletes are actually earning real degrees.

FALLOUT: Boeing Backlash: India’s IndiGo To Order 300 Jets From Airbus.

It was only last week when we reported Florida-based Spirit Airlines bought 100 new Airbus SE A320neos. The low-cost air carrier was contemplating between Airbus SE A320neo and Boeing 737 Max planes, but since the 737 Max has been grounded across the world for nearly eight months due to severe design flaws, Spirit went with Airbus.

As we noted last week, the backlash has begun, Boeing’s name is a disgrace to American aerospace, nevertheless, the company cannot be trusted due to its shady practices and negligence behind the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), a flight control computer of the plane, that malfunctioned in two separate crashes, one on October 2018 and the other March 2019.

Reuters reported Tuesday morning that Indian budget airline IndiGo “is close to placing a near-record order for over 300 Airbus A320neos.”

Sources told Reuters that the deal is expected to be worth $33 billion, which is roughly $110 million per plane.

Ultimately, trust keeps passenger jets flying every bit as much as the Bernoulli effect does.

HMM:

Plus: “The conventional wisdom of a vote by Thanksgiving having evaporated, now there’s worry that the House is spending far too much time behind closed doors, drawing things out. That’s as much of a factor in the Pelosi shift to a process vote as GOP pressure, I’m told.”

This is Pelosi’s mess, Dems — and it’s the mess you asked for, whether you realize it or not.

YOU MIGHT NOT BE INTERESTED IN THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG, BUT THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG IS INTERESTED IN YOU: PayPal De-Platforms Conservative Street Artist Sabo, Holds His Funds for Six Months.

SPENGLER: It’s Time for Every American Patriot to Rally Around Trump: The American Republic Is at Stake. “For the record, I don’t care whether there was quid pro quo with Ukraine or not. If President Trump used military aid as a bargaining chip to persuade the government of Ukraine to investigate foreign subversion of our political system, he was doing his job as commander-in-chief to protect this country from its external enemies. The parade of striped-pants cookie-pushers from the State Department feeding information to closed-door Democratic Party kangaroo courts in the House of Representatives is irrelevant. Trump is fighting a mutiny by the U.S. intelligence community. If the mutineers succeed, it will be the end of the republic. If a cabal of bureaucrats nestling in the bowls of our $80 billion a year intelligence bureaucracy can bring down an elected president of the United States, the republic is finished.”

Needless to say, read the whole thing.

CHARMING: Kentucky Political Cartoon Portrays Black GOP Candidate Holding Trump’s KKK Robe.

Tolerance isn’t for you, hater.

HMM: ‘Game of Thrones’ creators back out of planned new ‘Star Wars’ movie trilogy.

“We love ‘Star Wars,’ ” Benioff and Weiss said in a statement. “When George Lucas built it, he built us, too. Getting to talk about ‘Star Wars’ with him and the current ‘Star Wars’ team was the thrill of a lifetime, and we will always be indebted to the saga that changed everything. But there are only so many hours in the day, and we felt we could not do justice to both ‘Star Wars’ and our Netflix projects. So we are regretfully stepping away.”

I doubt this would be happening if “The Last Jedi” hadn’t been a complete failure, if “Solo” had been such a dud, and if the buzz on December’s “Rise of Skywalker” weren’t so awful.

Disney, as Bill Whittle pointed out, has done the impossible: They killed the Star Wars movie franchise.

THE OCEANS AREN’T GETTING ANY SMALLER: Navy admiral: A 355-ship Navy may not be attainable.

“Will we get to 355 ships?” Burke asked at the Military Reports and Editors conference in Arlington, Va. “I think with today’s fiscal situation, where the Navy’s top line is right now, we can keep around 305 to 310 ships whole, properly manned, properly maintained, properly equipped, and properly ready.”

He added that although the 355-ship target is appropriate, “it’s more important that we have the maximum capability to address every challenge that we might face.”

Currently, about 30 percent of the Navy’s destroyer fleet can leave port on schedule after repairs, and six of 11 aircraft carriers are under repair; one is the USS Harry S. Truman, whose electrical problems forced a cancellation of its deployment to the Middle East in September

The country has tens of millions more people than we did in the ’80s, we’re vastly richer, we’re more reliant on trade than ever, and yet we can only put to sea a fleet barely more than half the size it was under Reagan.

Readiness sucks, too: “Currently, about 30 percent of the Navy’s destroyer fleet can leave port on schedule after repairs, and six of 11 aircraft carriers are under repair; one is the USS Harry S. Truman, whose electrical problems forced a cancellation of its deployment to the Middle East in September.”

We’re failing at some very basic, vital stuff.

DENNIS PRAGER: ‘Your Past Is Terrible, and Your Future Is Terrible’: What the Left Tells Young Americans.

It’s no wonder they’re falling for oppressive ideologies.

SEVEN. YEARS. OLD. Father Claims Ex-Wife Plans Genital Mutilation for 7-Year-Old ‘Transgender’ Son.

THE RETURN OF THE AZTECS: Over 40 skulls found at altar in den of Mexico cartel suspects.

DECOUPLING: US Federal Communications Commission to vote to bar China’s Huawei and ZTE from US$8.5 billion government subsidy programme.

BUT OF COURSE: Emotional Katie Hill condemns ‘horrible smear campaign’ by rightwing foes.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Air Force to Test Lighter, Cheaper, Planes to Supplement the A-10. “While the entire Warthog fleet is being rebuilt and upgraded with modern avionics and targeting systems to the A-10C standard, nothing can change the fact that the last jet left the Fairchild assembly line 35 years ago. Those airframes are getting up there in years, which means they’re getting more expensive to fly, and more expensive to maintain. So maybe an aging, irreplaceable, $45 million jet isn’t always the best thing to fly against Third World jihadis.”

DAVID SOLWAY: What We Call National Health Care or Single-Payer Is a Crime Against Humanity.

LET THE SUNSHINE IN: Justice Department to Allow Body Cameras in Joint Task Forces. “Change comes after local police complained about longstanding federal ban.”

While a growing number of police departments across the U.S. require body cameras for public accountability, the federal government maintains that recording federal agents’ work would jeopardize sensitive investigations, a policy that has also applied to local police who work on joint task forces.

A pilot program in at least six cities aims to strike a balance by allowing officers to wear the cameras only during some arrests and while executing search warrants, senior Justice Department officials said. But they would leave the cameras behind during missions involving confidential informants, classified information and national-security concerns. For example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, which investigates potential terrorist attacks, would be prohibited from ever using the cameras.

Department officials said they hope a trial period of 90 days or longer will help answer major outstanding questions, including how footage should be stored and used in court cases; when cameras should be turned on or off; and how they should be used around undercover agents who require anonymity for sensitive cases.

The test run, which comes after months of deliberations with officials from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals and the Drug Enforcement Administration, will take place in about six midsize cities, the officials said.

Faster, please.