WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Joe Biden Demands SPLC-Style Terror Watchlist to Protect LGBT People.

The SPLC is a hate group.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Nikon Introduces Its Smallest, Lightest Mirrorless Camera Yet. “If you’re the owner of a Nikon D7000-series, or maybe even a D500, and you have the itch to upgrade to mirrorless… the Z50 looks like an awfully good way to scratch it.”

THE MOST 21ST CENTURY VIDEO EVER: Watch City Diversity Meeting Erupt In Chaos As White Males Banned From Speaking. “Buchanan then began shouting at the all-white board members (which again, includes herself) for daring to weigh in. At one point she even stuck her finger in the face of Oak Park’s mayor, a person of color sitting beside her and said, ‘Your skin is light enough!’ — meaning he wasn’t allowed to speak either, apparently.”

Diversity for me but not for thee, hater.

HMM: Waze thinks it can get Americans carpooling again.

Waze says carpool customers completed more than 550,000 rides globally last September. (Waze Carpool is available in the US, Mexico, Brazil, and Israel.) The company predicts that it will cross 1 million monthly rides by early 2020. Carpool customers in the US collectively drove 25 million miles last year, which the company estimates helped reduce carbon emissions by 20 million pounds, thanks to combined rides. But Waze would not reveal the total number of people who are using the app, nor would it comment on its retention and turnover rates.

“We have what we think is a magic number,” Josh Fried, head of Waze Carpool, said in an interview. “And that is four rides… If we get you into one carpool, and then you end up completing four carpools, you stick [with the service].”

Better than most light rail systems, I bet.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Steve Kerr Belongs in the Moron Hall of Fame.

My devotion to University of Arizona sports has kept me from saying anything about Steve Kerr after each time that he weighs in on politics and says something remarkably stupid, which is quite often.

I’m from Tucson. I went to the UofA. I’m a die-hard Wildcat fan and Steve Kerr is one of the most beloved and iconic alums from the school’s legendary basketball program. Kerr was a guard on the school’s first Final Four team.

Suffice it to say he is well-liked around these parts.

You can cross me off of that list now.

So much more at the link.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Sen. Cory Gardner Sees A ‘Very Political Process’ In The House’s Impeachment Inquiry.

OH: Asteroid may collide with Earth, ESA warns: ‘Non-zero… probability.’ “The European Space Agency is paying particular attention to asteroid 2019 SU3, which may collide with Earth as soon as 70 years from now.”

We have plenty of time to prepare… for that one.

WINNING: The Economic News From the Census Bureau Is Very Good.

Between 2017 and 2018:

·Real median family income up 1.2%

·Real median earnings up 3.4%

·Full-time, year-round workers up 2.3 million

·Poverty rate down from 12.3% to 11.8%; childhood poverty fell faster; net 1.4 million people left poverty

·Income in the bottom 80% of households was up significantly, only the top 20% of households saw an income decline. [emphasis added]

No wonder the elites are willing to risk so much on an unlikely impeachment.

NOT AGAIN: Boeing Finds Itself in a Fresh Pickle. “Cracks on heavily used 737 Next Generation jets don’t help Boeing’s efforts to reassure the flying public on aircraft safety.”

YOU WILL CONFORM: Beto Vows to Strip Tax-Exempt Status From Churches That Oppose Gay Marriage.

THEY HATE YOU; THEY REALLY HATE YOU: ‘MAGA’ Slogan Listed on California College’s ‘White Supremacy’ Pyramid.

Flashback: Nobody tell this guy.

YOUR OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: The Cost of Insuring Illegal Aliens: Between $10-20 Billion a Year.

FALLOUT: GM’s third-quarter China vehicle sales down 17.5%, as US automakers cede ground.

WE’LL SEE: Sanders says he ‘misspoke’ about scaling back rallies after heart attack, vows ‘vigorous’ 2020 campaign.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Apple, Google, Basketball, and Chinese Dominance of American Culture. “Apple and Google’s kowtowing comes in the same week that the NBA lent itself out as a virtual propaganda outlet for the Chinese Communist Party.”

YES: China: Threat or Menace? “Making China part of the world trade system was supposed to lead to China liberalizing and adopting democracy. It was a beautiful theory with a lot of supporting evidence behind it. One tiny problem: It turned out not to be true.”

YOU CAN’T SEE WELL ENOUGH IN THE DARK WHEN THE POWER IS OFF TO SHOWER, ANYWAY: California bans hotels from using tiny plastic bottles.

BEFORE LONG I’M AFRAID WE’LL LEARN WHICH SIDE IS CORRECT, IN THE WORST POSSIBLE WAY: Florida begins arming teachers as large school districts rebuff controversial program.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Meet Kyle Frese, Trump Hater, Federal Employee, Arrested for Leaking National Security Secrets.

LET ‘EM STARVE: UN Warns It Will Run Out of Money by End of the Month.

WE’LL RUN OUT OF EVERYTHING BUT “UNEXPECTEDLYS”: Elizabeth Warren Vows to Remake Capitalism. Businesses Are Bracing. “The Democratic Party’s favored presidential candidate has proposed sweeping changes to how business operates; many executives expect she would tack center.”

No front-runner has proposed such sweeping changes to how businesses operate. A President Warren would seek to regulate big tech companies as utilities, break up big banks and split them from securities dealers, ban fracking of oil and gas, phase out carbon emission from buildings, cars and power plants in eight to 15 years, require big companies to appoint worker representatives to at least 40% of board seats, ban private health insurance and, effectively, for-profit college, and negotiate down drug prices.

Her policies would directly affect companies with sales of nearly $5 trillion and stock-market value of more than $8 trillion, a third of the S&P 500 stock index. Taxes on the wealthy and corporations would rise sharply.

That, in turn, has led to nervousness among some executives. “She could create an environment where it is next to impossible to function” for health insurers, said Vicky Gregg, a former chief executive of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and now partner in a private-equity firm. “There’s no question that keeps you up at night if you’re a health-plan executive.”

Fear will keep the local executives in line, to borrow a phrase.

The real goal of course isn’t to “remake” capitalism. Rather, it’s to create opportunities for corruption and graft.

NOW THESE GUYS LOOK CRAVEN AND INDECISIVE: Apple, Google Pull Hong Kong Protest Apps After China Uproar. “HKmap.live raised concerns of endangering law enforcement and residents; ‘The Revolution of Our Times,’ violated rules related to sensitive events,’ Google says.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: ESPN College Game Day and Hong Kong Freedom Edition.

OH: Intel. analyst leaked top secret info to reporter, as part of ‘romantic’ relationship, feds say.

EXPLAINER: To prevent wildfires, the entire state’s power grid is subject to planned blackouts.

As with most vicious problems, the roots of the state’s power dilemma go back decades. For starters, the state is fire prone. “It’s a place that nature built to burn,” writes fire historian and Arizona State University professor Stephen J. Pyne. Almost all the region’s precipitation falls during the winter. By early summer, the hills are stocked with fuel and tinder-dry. And California’s federal and state lands are chronically undermanaged when it comes to controlled burns and reducing fuel loads. (President Trump evoked chuckles when, visiting the Camp Fire site, he described Finland’s superior forest management practices as “raking and cleaning.” Though inelegantly expressed, his recommendations reflected those of many wildfire experts.)

Then California’s ferocious winds, especially in late summer and fall, disrupt the usual flow of air off the Pacific: huge rivers of hot, bone-dry air from the state’s deserts and mountains rush unstoppably toward the coast. Known as the Santa Ana winds, the gusts can roar at 40 miles per hour or more for days at a time. Imagine a smoldering cigarette butt sitting on a pile of crumpled newspaper and being blasted by a hair drier—for hours on end—and you start to appreciate the havoc a single ember can wreak on the desiccated California landscape.

A wildfire that passes through uninhabited forests and grasslands doesn’t do much permanent damage. In fact, these ecosystems have evolved to benefit from occasional fires. In recent decades, though, California’s wild areas have filled up with people. (Though the media portrayed Paradise as a small town, the mountain community was actually home to 27,000 people. That’s roughly the population of New London, Connecticut) Even big cities bump up against wild country, with subdivisions filling mountain canyons and advancing into brushy deserts. Fire experts call these zones the “wildland-urban interface.” Nearly a third of California homes are built in these hard-to-protect areas.

Many California residents—especially retirees—are drawn to rural areas by the natural beauty. Who wouldn’t want to live in the Sierra foothills? But many also move to escape soaring housing costs in the state’s notoriously anti-development major cities.

And now the people smart enough to leave the cities are having their power switched off. It’s almost like California wants to be rid of smart people.