PREDICTION: California’s High Speed Rail Project Will Collapse Within Four Years.

Only if they can’t get a federal bailout.

ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Union Set to ‘Waste General Motors’ in Canada.

It’s been roughly a month since General Motors announced it would be shuttering Oshawa Assembly, leaving the facility’s nearly 3,000 employees and Canada’s auto union more than a little annoyed. Unifor leadership has said it intends to meet with GM executives on December 20th and discuss the automaker’s plans for the Oshawa facility in Detroit. However, the rhetoric coming from union head Jerry Dias makes the upcoming meeting sound more like a mafia hit than a labor negotiation.

“GM is leaving Canada, and we’re not going to let them,” Dias told reporters. “We are going to waste General Motors over the next year. Waste them.”

Haven’t unions done enough to GM already?

BLUE STATE BLUES: Some L.A. pensions are so huge they exceed IRS limits, costing taxpayers millions extra.

Dozens of retired Los Angeles employees are collecting such generous retirement pay that they exceed pension fund limits set by the Internal Revenue Service, saddling taxpayers with additional costs, a Times data analysis has found.

Their lavish pensions forced the city to establish an “Excess Benefit Plan” to pay what the pension system cannot legally cover, using money that could otherwise be tapped to fix sidewalks, fight homelessness or hire more cops.

In all, the little-known fund has paid $14.6 million to 110 retired employees since 2010, The Times’ analysis showed.

The list of recipients is dominated by former cops and firefighters whose million-dollar payouts from a separate retirement program drove their incomes well over the $220,000 annual limit the IRS allows pension funds to pay.

As I keep saying, if the middle class in this country ever fully realizes how badly they’ve been taken, and how little they’ve gotten in return, the reckoning is going to be fierce.

BREAKING: FBI Helps Italian Authorities Thwart ISIS Terror Bombing Plot Targeting Vatican.

ELECTION-NIGHT READERS TELL ME I’M TOO SOBER: CNN’s Cuomo Says Viewers ‘Frustrated’ Because He’s ‘Too Balanced.’

NOTHING’S SHOCKING: Shock Report: 86% Of Government Spending Is Now On Autopilot.

The new report from the Government Accountability Office — a federal auditing agency — shows that of the $3.7 trillion the federal government spent in 2015, $3.2 trillion of it didn’t require authorization by Congress that year. In other words, Congress only specifically approved 14% of what the federal government spent that year.

Over the years, Congress has passed laws that allow federal spending without any annual congressional approval. The biggest chunk is for so-called “entitlement programs” like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and welfare. Congress provided these programs with “permanent appropriations.” Spending levels are set automatically, based on eligibility rules and benefit amounts.

Over the years, this kind of autopilot spending authority exploded from $1.7 trillion in 1994 to $3.2 trillion by 2015. That’s an 87% increase, after adjusting for inflation.

The US population has increased by 24% since 1994, so “autopilot spending” per capita — again, mostly entitlements — has increased by nearly 66%.

NEWSWEEK: Venezuela Inflation Rate Passes 1 Million Percent, and It’s Costing Lives Every Day: This Is What Devastating Hyperinflation Looks Like.

The assembly forecasts that Venezuela would even hit 4.3 million percent by the end of this month. Econoanalítica, a Venezuelan private financial firm, affirmed that hyperinflation would reach at least 2 million before December ends, local reports indicated.

With such a staggering rate, it’s no wonder Venezuelans like Diaz have rushed to spend money before prices continue their increase. Last month, after Maduro announced its sixth minimum wage increase in 2018, the price of a cup of coffee went up 285,614 percent—which is equivalent to 400 sovereign bolivars or $0.76—and the black market exchange rate, considered the real measure to know real costs in Venezuela, dropped to 526 bolivars per dollar from the previous 460, Bloomberg’s Cafe Con Leche Index reported early this month. Pan de jamón, a bread filled with raisins and ham (a staple food for Venezuelans during Christmas) increased 52 percent in late November, Bloomberg added.

“You can’t have savings in the bank,” Díaz told Newsweek in a video interview from Caracas. “The central bank is doing this because they’re printing and covering the money that the government of Nicolas Maduro is not producing. Hyperinflation is the culprit of this phenomenon and we, the population, are the victims.”

Victims of what, exactly, is up for debate apparently, as Newsweek couldn’t bring itself to use the S-word even once in a 1,650-word report.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Comey Back on Hill, Farewell Obamacare? and Much, Much More. “Lordy, ex-FBI deep-stater James Comey the Redeemer is back on the Hill today to twerk and freak for the Justice and Oversight committees.”

That was a bit vivid for this early in the day.

CHANGE: New Armed Services Chair Says He Will Fund Military, Not Drive Foreign Policy ‘Like McCain Did.’

Since his death in August, the one-time presidential candidate has been eulogized as a statesman, a lawmaker deeply involved in U.S. policy abroad and known for his often blistering opinions on foreign affairs. McCain played a particularly outsized role in international politics under President Trump, traveling abroad to reassure jumpy allies and publicly critiquing the president’s isolationist doctrine.

Inhofe, an Army veteran who previously had served as ranking minority member of the committee when Democrats last controlled the Senate, sees his role in more narrow terms: ensure that the U.S. military is adequately resourced, and leave foreign policy to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“My job is to make sure that when we get the information from the ones who are smarter than I am as to where our threats are, my job is to make sure we have the resources to build the military to confront that,” he told Defense One in an interview. “I try not to get into debates with people on the threat that they view. What I can do is say, okay, if that threat is correct, these are the resources we need.

Refreshing.

DRILL, BABY, DRILL: Mexico aims to boost crude output by 45 percent before 2025.

Speaking from Ciudad del Carmen, a Gulf coast city 50 miles (85 kilometers) from an oil field that sustained Mexican public finances for decades, Lopez Obrador said the goal is for Petroleos Mexicanos to raise crude output to 2.4 million barrels per day, from the current 1.65 million barrels per day.

“We are going to invest where we know there’s petroleum and where it costs us less to extract it,” he told a jubilant crowd of oil workers.

Lopez Obrador previously announced plans to invest 75 billion pesos ($3.65 billion) of savings from a government austerity program into Pemex.

The company has struggled to come up with funds in recent years amid mounting pension obligations, high tax rates, rampant fuel theft and inefficiencies.

If he were really serious, he’d push for privatizing Pemex.

2018: No one wants to ban your guns.

SLIGHTLY LATER IN 2018: Pittsburgh Mayor Trying To Pass Illegal And Unconstitutional Gun Ban.

BECAUSE SHUT UP, PEASANTS: Why are Tijuana residents being ignored about caravan?

UNDER THE PRECEDENTS SET UNDER THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATION, CONGRESS MAY BE SAFELY IGNORED: Trump Will Likely Face ‘Subpoenas Every Week’ After Democrats Take Over House in January, Journalist Warns.

Julie Davis joined a panel of Congressional and White House correspondents on CNN Sunday morning to discuss the growing number of allegations against Trump, as well as the conviction of numerous top associates. The journalist pointed out that Democrats will be much more enthusiastic to push the investigation forward than their Republican counterparts.

After host John Hill listed numerous investigations already ongoing into Trump’s and his associates’ suspicious dealings, Davis jumped in to suggest there are even more on the way.

“This is not even counting all the investigations they’ll be confronting from the House Democrats when they take over in January,” the journalist said. “I mean, this is a whole other can of worms that they know they’ll have to deal with.”

They’ve got a bad case of Impeachment Fever.

THE FINE EUROPEAN TRADITION OF HOLDING AS MANY VOTES AS REQUIRED TO PRODUCE THE DESIRED RESULT? EU Leaders Dig in Against May’s Brexit Plan While She Mulls Second Referendum. “Holding another ‘leave’ vote may be the only way that May can win approval of her Brexit plan.”

TONI AIRAKSINEN: Creepy New App Lets You See What Your Kid’s Googling in Real Time. “This should never be a thing.”

KARMA: Suspected burglar of Chinese restaurant trapped in grease vent for two days.

THAT YOU LIKE BEER? Here’s What Ordering Your Favorite Lager Might Say About Your Personality.

HMM: Cannabis use in teens not a gateway to conduct problems, study suggests – but risks still exist.

“MIGRANTS”: Tijuana Official Provides Update On Spike In Crime. “There have been like 280 arrests. Before it was only for drug possession and being drunk in the streets. Now it’s for breaking and entering into the homes. People have made citizens arrests.”

CYBERSECURITY: The 25 worst passwords of 2018 based on 5 million leaked passwords on the internet.

Have we learned nothing from the numerous hacks and leaks in recent memory?

Apparently not.

Password-management company SplashData released its annual list of the 100 worst passwords of the year based on 5 million leaked passwords on the internet. The worst passwords continued to be “123456” and “password.”

Some of you have switched things up, as there are several new entries to this year’s list, like “donald” ranked at number 23, presumably inspired by President Donald Trump.

Password managers exist to generate strong passwords that you don’t have to remember, and some operating systems even have them baked in. But I also understand that many corporate IT departments have their own password rules, which actually result in less security, not more.

DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE, OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE: Mueller’s Office Scrubbed Strzok-Page Text Messages Before IG Could Review Them.

IF YOU LIKE YOUR PLAN, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR PLAN: Barack Obama Slams Those ‘Making Up Whatever Facts They Want’ in RFK Human Rights Award Speech.

YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW: This Is What Happens to Your Body When You Eat Instant Ramen.

FORMER DEMOCRATIC OHIO STATE SENATOR CAPRI CAFARO: Democrats won’t win in 2020 unless they remember that the road to the White House runs through Main Street.