DR. TIM BALL AND TOM HARRIS: The Proposed ‘Climate Damages Tax’ Is Dumb and Dangerous. “A terrible idea based on terrible science.”

WASTED YOUTH: Actor Says Tech-Savvy Teens Prove 16-Year-Olds Have Capacity to Vote.

EVERYTHING IS RACIST: Critics Slam Clint Eastwood’s ‘Mule’ as Racist. “Critics routinely cheer the most despicable characters on screens large and small. So why the fury against Eastwood’s crusty codger?”

Old white guys deserve what’s coming to them, especially the ones who regularly produce entertaining, moneymaking films on-time and under-budget.

THE WAGES OF SIN: Slime-bag Louis Farrakhan Is Getting Cash From U.S. Government.

SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE AND UNFUNDED LIABILITIES: Five remarkably candid tips from departing Gov. Jerry Brown.

“In politics, you should take care of your friends,” said Brown, noting that both Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, and Rose Bird, former chief justice of the California court system, started out working for his various campaigns. “Loyalty is important. Keep the meritocracy within limits.”

But there are limits on repaying loyalty too.

“Politics is a difficult business,” he said. “You need to raise massive sums of money from people who all want something and if you give it to them directly you’ll go to jail. But if you don’t give it to them in some form, you won’t be elected to the next office.”

Maybe the problem is in treating elected office as a career, rather than as a brief opportunity to accomplish something important for the people of your state.

BRUCE BAWER: Where’s Tutu? “As blacks visit horror on white farmers in his country, he has no more ‘one human family’ speeches to give.”

It’s different this time because you can’t fight racism without taking away the life, liberty, and property of white people.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Venezuelans Regret Gun Ban. “Guns would have served as a vital pillar to remaining a free people, or at least able to put up a fight.”

As Kurt Schlichter is fond of saying, an armed person is a citizen but a disarmed person is a serf.

Eventually, anyway.

RELATED: NY Bill Would Require Gun Owners to Carry $1M Insurance Policies.

Since illegal gun owners and criminals won’t carry insurance, let’s call this bill what it really is: A payoff to Big Insurance and an infringement on the right to keep and bear arms.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Liberal Arts Weren’t Murdered — They Committed Suicide.

The tragedy, then, is not just that a campus of the University of Wisconsin would drop the history major but that the custodians of history in the 21st century lost the ability to teach and write about history in a way that sustains a hallowed 2,500-year tradition. In other words, what is being jettisoned is likely not just history as we once understood it but rather de facto poorly taught “-studies” courses — which sadly become snapshots of particular (and often small) eras of history — designed to offer enough historical proof of preconceived theories about contemporary modern society. The students then are assumed by the course’s end to be outraged, persuaded, galvanized, and shocked in politically acceptable ways. Usually they are just bored, as supposedly with-it professors endlessly regurgitate the esoterica picked up in graduate schools.

Of course, not all historians see the past as an orthodox way of fixing the present, but enough do to discourage students, especially when younger faculty members draw on their rather specialized doctoral theses or narrow journal-article expertise to drive home an agenda that seems preachy or proselytizing to naturally resistant young spirits. To the Millennial mind, calcified Sixties-era radicalism is about as edgy as once was the Stalinist 1930s Old Left sermonizing to the Woodstock crowd. Trendiness that once pleased faculty committees and careerist deans did not always please students, and therefore the result is now not so pleasing to faculty committees and careerist deans.

As I’ve written here before about the Left: They’ll destroy or smear what they cannot seize.

Anyway, it’s Victor Davis Hanson so read the whole thing.

BECAUSE REALITY: 2 Students Explain Why They Defended Teacher Fired Over Transgender Pronouns.

KINDNESS: For 10 years, George H.W. Bush was the secret sponsor of a boy in the Philippines.

Bush learned about Compassion International, a nonprofit that connects sponsors with children from poor communities, in 2001, the organization’s former president, Wess Stafford, told CNN on Tuesday. Bush’s security team did some digging, and after vetting Compassion International, they agreed that he could sponsor 7-year-old Timothy. There were some rules, though; he had to use a pseudonym, to protect Timothy from someone who might target him due to his link to Bush.

For 10 years, Bush sent letters — signed “George Walker” — and funds that paid for Timothy’s education, activities, and food. Stafford screened Bush’s letters, describing them to CNN as being “the most sweet, spirited letters I have read from any sponsor, but he kept giving hints as to who he could be. He was really pushing the envelope.” Bush sent photos of his dog, Sadie, and told Timothy that he was invited to the White House for Christmas. Timothy drew pictures for Bush, who in turn sent him sketch pads, colored pencils, and paint, even though gifts were not allowed.

Lovely.

TYLER O’NEIL: SPLC Demands Zuckerberg, Sandberg Leave Facebook Board Over ‘Hate Groups,’ Anti-Semitism.

Plus: Sam Harris Drops Patreon, Citing ‘Political Bias’ Likely Inspired by SPLC’s ‘Hate Group’ List.

That’s quite the hate racket they have there.

TYLER O’NEIL: In Wake of Obama, 89 Percent of Top Universities Get a ‘D’ or ‘F’ on Due Process. “Betsy DeVos Title IX regs would raise their scores to a “C” or better.”

But I bet you still won’t be allowed to call it a Gentleman’s C.

THIS ACTUALLY REQUIRED A FACT-CHECK? No, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not repeat a quote that disparages socialism.

Sleep easy, comrades.

AND HE MUST WEAR THE CONE OF SHAME: San Francisco Orders Property Owner to Build Exact Replica of Demolished Home.

Back in late 2017, Ross Johnston tore down a two-story home he owned in the city’s Twin Peaks neighborhood, intending to build a larger house on the same site.

The destruction of the home—known as the Largent House and designed by famed architect Richard Neutra back in the 1930s—angered neighbors who bemoaned the loss of a historic building. It also pissed off city officials, who had issued permits for the house to be substantially redesigned, not demolished in its entirety.

On Thursday, the city’s Planning Commission made what the San Francisco Chronicle is calling an “unprecedented” decision. In a 5–0 vote, it ordered Johnston to build an exact replica of the house he destroyed, save for the addition of a new plaque explaining the details of the building’s demolition and reconstruction.

Mao would have understand the purpose behind the plaque.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: So, remember how the week before Christmas is supposed to be uneventful? Yeah… not so much. “So… former national security adviser Michael Flynn was NOT sentenced yesterday. Instead, this evident non-traitor was berated as a traitor.”

Tyler is filling in for Liz today.

HEY, BIG SPENDER: With massive F-35 increase, Japan is now biggest international buyer.

Tokyo previously planned to procure 42 F-35A models. However, a source close to the program confirmed that Japan will be adding 63 F-35A models, as well as 42 F-35B models, for a total of 147 F-35 fighters.

The announcement, anticipated for weeks, was rolled out as part of Japan’s new defense plan Tuesday.

The package would make Japan second only to the United States in terms of procured F-35s, with the United Kingdom (138 total fighters) now third. Japan also becomes the fourth user of the “B” model, joining the U.S. Marine Corps, the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force and the Italian Navy.

I’m very curious to know what modifications Japanese engineers make on the platform, assuming they ever tell.

See also: Why Israel’s Stealth F-35I Is Truly One of a Kind.

CHANGE: Brazil’s Bolsonaro says he will target Venezuela, Cuba. “Brazil’s far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro said on Tuesday that he would take all action ‘within the rule of law and democracy’ to oppose the governments of Venezuela and Cuba. Bolsonaro, who takes power Jan. 1, made the comment in a Facebook live video. A fervent anti-communist who has praised his country’s 1964-1985 military regime, he frequently targets Venezuela and Cuba for verbal attacks, a drastic change from Brazil’s governments under the leftist Workers Party that ruled from 2003 to 2016.”

The workers might have a chance, now that the Workers Party is out of power.

HAVE YOU HUGGED A FRACKER TODAY? Oil Prices Down 35% From Recent Highs. “Crude for January delivery slips more than 7% to $46.24 a barrel.”

Signs of rising U.S. and Russian crude production have also helped send prices spiraling in recent days.

In its drilling productivity report late Monday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that U.S. shale-oil production from several key regions would rise from December by 134,000 barrels a day to reach 8.2 million barrels a day in January. That would mark an acceleration from growth in previous months.

The U.S. overtook Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’s largest producer earlier this year and is pumping nearly 12 million barrels a day in total, EIA figures show. Russia, meanwhile, said its crude output had climbed to a record 11.42 million barrels a day in December.

Seriously, have you?

7TH CENTURY HEADLINES: Iranian Reformists clash with hard-liners in drive to restrict child marriage.

JEFF DUNETZ ON THE BUMP STOCK BAN: I am a member of the NRA, strongly believe in the right to bear arms, and believe that the government should keep it’s grubby hands away from people’s firearms. However, in this case, I believe the government did the right thing.

ROBERT SPENCER: With the ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ Uproar, Islam and #MeToo Intersect.

This wouldn’t be the first time the women’s movement and radical Islam hopped into bed together.

FLASHBACK: Baby, It’s Hot in Here.

IF THEY CAN DEPLATFORM TUCKER CARLSON, THEY CAN DEPLATFORM ANYONE — AND THEY’RE DEPLATFORMING TUCKER CARLSON: Advertisers flee Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show as controversy grows over immigration remarks. (Bumped).

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER… MEASUREY THING: Measuring Left-Wing Authoritarianism in America.

BRUCE BAWER: What’s the Deal With All This Unrest in Paris?

In fact, when you come right down to it, the whole thing is really pretty simple. On one side you’ve got these mobs of immigrants, most of whom have no business being in France in the first place, but who, instead of keeping a low profile and showing some gratitude for what the French state has already given them, have a breathtaking sense of entitlement that makes them feel free to charge the very temples of French culture and issue arrogant demands. On the other side, you have humble French workers, most of them from the provinces, who have seen their wages stagnate, in large part because of the mass influx of competitive immigrant labor, and seen their taxes soar, in large part because of the government’s need to fund ballooning social-welfare benefits for immigrants who choose not to work.

There would seem to be a simple, if not exactly easy fix to this mess.

PROGRESS? California’s homeless number drops a little as programs appear to pay off. “Investing billions of dollars in affordable housing and homeless programs in recent years has apparently put the brakes on what had been a surge in California’s homeless population, causing it to dip by 1 percent this year, a federal report released Monday showed.”

Billions for a one percent drop? Color me unimpressed. And incensed, if I were still a California taxpayer.