I HAVE MANY SUGGESTIONS, ALL DATING FROM 2012: Romney on Trump Criticism: People Can Suggest ‘How I Could Do a Better Job, Too.’

IF THREE’S A CROWD, WHAT’S THIS? Your Obligatory 2020 Democratic Party Presidential Horse Race Roundup.

WOW: Former NY Times editor rips Trump coverage as biased.

HE SELF-IDENTIFIES AS STILL BEING IN POWER: Don’t call Biden the “former” vice president.

OH: A Chinese warship armed with an electromagnetic railgun appears to have set sail on the open ocean.

Trump phases Arab forces into Syria vs Iran ahead of US pullout. Egyptian/UAE officers on the scene.

When Sen. Lindsay Graham said Monday, Dec. 31: “I think we are slowing things [exit from Syria] down in a smart way,” he confirmed DEBKAfile’s Dec. 22 report: “US troops will leave eastern and northern Syria, but America is not deserting this part of the country and will continue to maintain a presence after the pullout.” On Monday, the Republican Senator, who sharply criticized President Donald Trump for the troop withdrawal as a “huge Obama-like mistake,” stated: “The president assured me he is going to make sure he gets the job done.”

Our sources can now reveal the nature of that presence and the process afoot for the gradual US withdrawal. In the last few days, Egyptian and UAE military officers visited the contested north Syrian town of Manbij. They toured the town and its outskirts, checked out the locations of US and Kurdish YPG militia positions, and took notes on how to deploy their own troops as replacements. On the diplomatic side, the White House is in continuous conversation with the UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Muhammed Bin Ziyad (MbZ) and Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi. The deal Trump is offering, is that they take over US positions in Manbij, where the Kurds have sought protection against a Turkish invasion, and American air cover will be assured against Russian, Syrian or Turkish attack.

Trump’s decision has been played in the media and Official Washington as the most reckless act since Napoleon decided to march on Moscow, but if Debka has the story right, this is a measured and responsible move. It’s certainly much more measured and responsible than President Obama’s “red line” fecklessness which got us into Syria in the first place. But that’s not a story that you’ll get from the media or Official Washington.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Facebook still hasn’t launched a big privacy feature that Mark Zuckerberg promised more than seven months ago. “It’s taking longer than we initially had thought.”

The product, called “Clear History,” got a lot of attention. Not only is browsing data important — Facebook uses it to target people with advertising — but CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Clear History himself during Facebook’s annual developer conference. Clear History was an olive branch meant to show everyone how serious Facebook is about privacy. […]

As it turns out, clearing your browser history was harder to implement than Facebook expected. It’s been more than seven months since Zuckerberg’s announcement and Facebook hasn’t mentioned Clear History since.

Tech blogger John Gruber adds, “I don’t think it was hard, per se, but that the entire announcement was bullshit intended to distract people from the biggest privacy scandal in company history — and Facebook is a company riddled with privacy scandals.”

Zuckerberg’s Everything is great! New Year’s message reads like a smokescreen covering a smokescreen.

THE HELL WITH LOSING GRACEFULLY: Trump Shoots Down Mitt Romney’s New Year’s Day Attack. “I won big, and he didn’t.”

PATRICK POOLE: Cleveland Doctor Ousted After Anti-Semitic Social Media Posts Exposed. “Lara Kollab had joked about giving her Jewish patients the wrong medicine.”

SEE THE RACISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: New Orleans Women’s March CANCELED After Co-Chairs Exposed As Racists.

THAT WILL SHOW THEM: Tiffany Haddish Vows To Wear Fur Every Day Until ‘Police Stop Killing Black People.’

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Gov’t Still Shutdown, Tear Gas Deployed and Much, Much More. “Pelosi took a break from listening to Don Ho and eating poi to offer a spending plan to open the government that does not include border wall funding. The WH is not interested. Good.”

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: The country that has lost three million people. “An estimated 5,000 people pack up their lives and leave every day, eager to flee the economic collapse and humanitarian crisis which has beset the oil-rich nation.”

ROBERT KAPLAN: Time to Get Out of Afghanistan. “The United States is spending beyond its means on a mission that might only be helping its strategic rivals.”

No other country in the world symbolizes the decline of the American empire as much as Afghanistan. There is virtually no possibility of a military victory over the Taliban and little chance of leaving behind a self-sustaining democracy — facts that Washington’s policy community has mostly been unable to accept.

While many American troops stay behind steel-reinforced concrete walls to protect themselves from the very population they are supposed to help, it is striking how little discussion Afghanistan has generated in government and media circles in Washington. When it comes to Afghanistan, Washington has been a city hiding behind its own walls of shame and frustration.

While the Chinese, Pakistanis, Indians and Iranians are all developing competing energy and mining projects in and next door to Afghanistan, the United States appears to have little commercial future in the country, even though it spends about $45 billion there annually.

Read the whole thing.

HMM: Iran drought turns political as lawmakers fight over water share.

Eighteen lawmakers representing constituencies from the central Iranian province of Esfahan, where water scarcity has reached an alarming state, have resigned collectively in a symbolic move against what they believe is an unfair distribution of water resources. In response, their counterparts from three other provinces, which share the same water supplies, hit back. They demanded in a public letter that the heads of the three branches of the Iranian state — president, parliament speaker and judiciary chief — as well as the country’s powerful Supreme National Security Council intervene to bridge the widening divide over who should have more water.

The latest confrontation has not been without a precedent. Last August, Iran’s interior minister reported at least 20 water-related clashes, some of them deadly, in a period of less than 140 days.

Local tensions over water resources in Iran are not a novelty either. In recent years, the crisis has not only worsened but has also witnessed new implications. Provinces that were traditionally considered water-rich areas — such as west Azerbaijan, east Azerbaijan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari, Khuzestan, Mazandaran, Gilan and Golestan — are already battling it out to win the bigger share, bringing the fight to political levels in the open.

Plus: “To overcome the crisis, the Iranian government has launched at least 10 water transfer megaprojects in the target areas. The projects, however, remain incomplete and have only complicated the situation by sparking protests in areas from which water is meant to be transferred to drought-hit regions.”

This is an underreported story with potentially huge consequences. More details at the link.

HEALTH: Experimental vaccine could let coeliacs eat gluten.

TAMING THE BEAST: Trump Administration Issues Fewest New Regulations in History. “The Competitive Enterprise Institute has some good news for beleaguered U.S. businesses.“

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: The 20 Worst Quotes of 2018.

JIM GERAGHTY: Twenty Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Bernie Sanders. “His first successful campaign, for mayor of Burlington in 1981, was largely driven by opposition to higher residential property taxes.”

SPENGLER: It’s chutzpah to blame Trump for Syria.

CRYBULLY: Store Clerk Loses His Mind When Man Wearing Trump Gear Walks into Store. “The owners of the store actually did the right thing and fired the clerk.”

IDEAS SO GOOD THEY HAVE TO BE MANDATORY: California will soon require pet stores to only sell rescue dogs and cats.

Under California’s AB 485 law, all pet stores also must maintain records for each animal, including a sign that lists the name of the shelter that the animal was obtained. Stores that violate the new law will be subjected to a fine of $500.

Individuals in California, however, can still buy from private breeders.

“For how much longer?” seems like a fair question.

My wife and I are the proud and happy owners of two rescue dogs, but we wouldn’t think of making a different choice more difficult for anyone else.

SO THAT WE ARE ALWAYS REMINDED OF OUR PLACE: GAO Report Shows Govt. Agencies Like IRS and NIH Are Heavily Armed, WHY?

VIDEO: Franklin Graham Blocked on Facebook for 2016 Post on Transgender Bathroom Bill. “I think it was a personal attack toward me.”

DOUBLE STANDARDS: When Mother Jones suggests approaching white supremacists with empathy, it’s ‘provocative.’