IT’S TOM CLANCY ON ACID: China Arrests Kim Jong-un’s Canadian Drinking Buddy, Friend of Rodman.

CHANGE? New App Posing HUGE Threat To Twitter Sees Thousands Looking For Free Speech Haven To Sign Up Almost Overnight.

According to the Daily Caller, an App called “Parler News” has seen a surge in users in such a short amount of time, the majority of them looking for free speech alternatives to the oppressive Twitter trust and safety nightmare.

This [is] less than good news for Twitter, whom many thought was too big to fail. According to Parler News CEO John Matze, however, Twitter’s hubris will be its downfall.

“Alternative platforms will rise and those who are bold will switch,” said Matze in a post. “Big tech is not too big to topple, in fact, they are blinded by their size/power and are hurting themselves by ideologically targeting groups.”

Many names have already made their way there, including TPUSA’s Candace Owens, the NRA, Paul Joseph Watson, and Laura Loomer.

Well, good — Twitter is a cesspit, and an oppressive one at that.

I’ll check into the app over the next few days and report back.

SURPRISING NO ONE WHO REGULARLY READS INSTAPUNDIT OR VODKAPUNDIT: Japan is loading up on F-35s for an aircraft carrier meant to check China.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Flynn, Cohen Sentencing and Much, Much More. “Just to remind you, Mike Flynn was urged (by the fired, anti-Trump Andrew McCabe) not to bring an attorney to his meeting with FBI agents. And this: “McCabe also wrote in the memo that he and other FBI officials decided before the meeting that Flynn would not be warned ahead of the interview about the penalties of lying to the agents. McCabe noted that ‘they wanted Flynn to be relaxed’ and ‘were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport.'” HOLY CIVIL LIBERTIES BAT MAN!”

ANALYSIS: VRAI. Macron Just Doesn’t Get It. “He and others on the left are being swept along by world-historical forces they do not fully understand.”

From the beginning I’ve been a supporter of Macron and his desire to extend economic globalization. But here’s the problem: The West is experiencing a loss of relative status, due to diminished power and influence. Western societies, including France, are being transformed by immigration beyond what many of their native-born citizens had expected. The rising prominence of terror, migration and security issues have boosted some of the less salubrious sides of the right wing. Add to that mix wage stagnation and the increasingly common view — held by 91 percent in France — that today’s children will not have better lives than their parents. Finally, the decline of organized religion, especially pronounced in Western Europe, has created a spiritual vacuum and a crisis of meaning.

In response, people want something beyond more income redistribution (what the left is offering) or more globalization (what the pre-populist right used to offer). People want ideas and inspiration, and when no good new ideas are put forward, the current default seems to be nationalist ideas, including of the less tolerant variety.

Actually, what they seem to want is a chance to do better, which the French system simply won’t allow. And if Claire Berlinski’s report is anything to go by — the violent minority assortment of communists, socialists, and anarchists aside — France is experiencing something very much like our 2009-2010 Tea Party protests. Then, like now, legitimate concerns about taxes and spending and the Leviathan State were dismissed by the intelligentsia as latent racism, nativism, fear of “the other,” etc.

I don’t pretend to fully understand what’s going on either, but a little less condescension might go a long way.

ALLIES: Erdogan says Turkish troops to march into northeast Syria.

“We will start the operation to clear the east of the Euphrates from separatist terrorists in a few days,” Erdogan told a conference of arms manufacturers in the capital Tuesday. He said Turkish forces would not attack the US military, which has some 2,000 troops in Syria.

But he poured scorn on US support for the Syrian Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Washington regards as an important ally in the battle against militants of the Islamic State (IS). The YPG is a sister organization of the Kurdistan Workers Party, a Turkish insurgent group classified as terrorist by the United States and the European Union.

In a bid to protect its Syrian Kurdish allies, the US military in northeast Syria has conducted joint patrols with the Syrian Defense Forces, an umbrella group that consists largely of YPG fighters, and erected US-staffed observation towers along the Syrian-Turkish border.

“Our strategic partners (US) are cooperating with the extension of the PKK in Syria. We are saying they are terrorists, but they (US) deny it.” Erdogan said.

While there are Kurds who are terrorists, by and large the Kurdish-run semiautonomous regions of Syria and Iraq are decently run by regional standards, and generally supportive of the United States. When Edrogan speaks of Kurdish terrorists, what he mostly means is the ethnic and ethnographic threat they pose to his regime.

TRADE: ‘Forced tech transfer’ has to stop or be regulated, says EU ambassador to China.

“For the last 40 years, EU companies have provided most of the foreign tech that is in China, about 50 percent of what is today in China,” said Nicolas Chapuis, ambassador of the EU delegation to China.

However, the diplomat expressed concerns about China trading market access for technology.

Beijing sometimes forces foreign companies to hand over their technological know-how in exchange for access to its massive domestic market. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that China cease forced tech transfers, which have become a flashpoint in the U.S.-China trade war.

“This has to stop or to be regulated,” Chapuis told CNBC at the European Chamber Annual Conference 2018 in Beijing.

China pretended to not be an expansionist, revisionist, revanchist, ideological power just long enough to get the tech know-how and tech manufacturing base it needed to take on the West. What happens next is anyone’s guess.

READINESS: US Navy says 3 nuclear-powered attack submarines ‘not certified to dive today.’

The spotlight has been on the USS Boise, which has now been out of service for four years. Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. William Moran told senators during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday that the Boise would enter a private shipyard in January, but two other submarines “are not certified to dive today.”

The Navy has been working for years to get more submarines into dry dock for maintenance, which now includes the use of private sector shipyards in addition to public ones. As many as 15 subs awaited maintenance in Oct. 2017, keeping a significant chunk of the service’s 71-submarine fleet potentially out of service.

“We want no more Boise’s,” Moran told senators, adding that the other two submarines will enter dry dock in February and late spring.

“The numbers are coming down significantly. The standing in line has come down significantly,” he added. “We still have a ways to go. We’re not out of the woods yet, but I think as capacity opens up in the private yards, and we do a better job in the public yards, getting our carriers out on time, we’ll be there.”

The sequester has played absolute hell with Navy maintenance schedules.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL TAKING THE BOEING: Boeing just launched a new $400 million 777X private airliner, and it’s a flying mansion that can go halfway around the world.

If you have the means…

The upcoming Boeing 777X has some big shoes to fill. The new wide-body is set to be Boeing’s next flagship and the replacement for the iconic 747 jumbo jet.

And now there will be a private-jet version of the airliner.

On Monday, Boeing Business Jets launched the BBJ 777X at the Middle East Business Aviation Association Show in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

“Our most exclusive customers want to travel with the best space and comfort and fly directly to their destination,” Greg Laxton, the head of Boeing Business Jets, said in a statement. “The new BBJ 777X will be able to do this like no other aeroplane before it, redefining ultra-long-range VIP travel.”

That’s a classical reference in the headline.

MAYBE THE REAL QUESTION IS WHETHER MITT WANTS TO: Is a Trump-Romney Moment Possible?

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL PACKING HEAT: Why Conservative Millennials Are Wearing Yoga Pants With Gun Holsters.

P. DAVID HORNIK: With Friends Like Angela Merkel, Does Israel Need Enemies? “She finds anti-Semitism ‘unacceptable,’ unless it’s made in Iran.”

I dunno — she sure has been enthusiastic about importing plenty of antisemites right into Germany.

NICK CANNON: Hollywood Must Apologize for Its Racist Past. ““I believe we should force the Academy to apologize for how they’ve treated several communities…Let’s go back to Hattie McDaniel, the first black woman to ever receive and Academy Award, and she was forced to sit in the back and be segregated from the rest of the Gone With The Wind cast. Did we receive an apology for that?…We’ve allowed the Academy to grow since then and we did #OscarsSoWhite, all those things. And that was just a couple of years ago. But we’re allowing them to grow. We didn’t force them to apologize…If we’re going to start bringing up people’s past, then so has the Academy.”

Christian Toto has the full story at the link.

UPDATE: Super Micro says no evidence of spy chips found in its hardware.

In a letter sent to customers, the California hardware maker said a third-party investigations firm, tested its current and older-model motherboards for evidence that malicious chips or other hardware had been inserted into its products. Super Micro said it wasn’t surprised by the results.

Super Micro didn’t identify the company that conducted the investigation. Nardello & Co. later said it conducted the investigation but declined to comment further.

The investigation follows an October story by Bloomberg Businessweek that reported Chinese surveillance chips had been inserted into Super Micro hardware in order to spy on its clients, including Apple and Amazon Web Services.

Apple and Amazon have denied the content of Bloomberg’s report.

Bloomberg News declined to comment.

Bloomberg stands by its story, but more than two months later and no one has been able to find one of these mysterious chips, whose powers and abilities seem dubious to some analysts.

SUNSHINE IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT: ‘She’s Scared’ — Ted Cruz Criticizes Pelosi For Wanting To Turn Cameras Off During White House Meeting. “He was standing up and saying ‘we’re going to keep our promise, we’re gonna secure border, we’re gonna build the wall. And I’ll tell you one of the surest indications on how unhappy the Democrats were in that exchange is over and over again Nancy Pelosi says, ‘can we turn the TV cameras off? We are not supposed to be doing this publicly.’ You can tell they’re on the losing end of the argument when she’s scared that cameras are showing that she and the Democrats are for open borders and the president is fighting to do what the American people want which is secure the border, build the wall and keep our country safe.”

Bill Whittle said yesterday during this week’s Right Angle taping that it was the first time he could remember a Republican setting a media trap for Democrats, when it happens so often the other way around.

DON’T BE EVIL OR WHATEVS: Google Hosts Sharia Law App Enabling Muslims to Report Blasphemy and Heresy to the Police.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Everybody’s Wrong: Donald Trump Won the Chuck-n-Nancy Meeting, and Here’s Why. “All that in-front-of-the-cameras civility is fake anyway. Trump dispensed with it. It was refreshing, and his people will love it, shutdown or no shutdown.”

RELATED: On today’s Right Angle, Bill Whittle, Scott Ott, and I had much fun at Pelosi and Schumer’s expense — but probably not as much as Trump did.

NEW YORK TIMES: It remains unclear what motivated the gunman who opened fire at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, officials said, as the police continue an intensive search for the attacker.

The killer who shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he attacked? We may never know his true motive.

HMM: Did Clinton Foundation mislead IRS? State filings raise the question.

The Utah episode, though a decade old, and other state regulatory issues involving the Clinton Foundation are gaining new attraction because they are included in thousands of pages of documents gathered in a whistleblower submission filed last year by a firm composed of former federal law enforcement investigators, called MDA Analytics LLC.

That submission made with the IRS, and eventually provided to the Justice Department in Washington and to the FBI in Little Rock, Ark., alleges there is “probable cause” to believe the Clinton Foundation broke federal tax law and possibly owes millions of dollars in tax penalties. That submission and its supporting evidence will be one focus of a GOP-led congressional hearing Thursday in the House.

The foundation strongly denies any wrongdoing. But it acknowledges its own internal legal reviews in 2008 and 2011 cited employee concerns ranging from quid pro quo promises to donors, to improper commingling of personal and charity business.

Another of the issues the foundation’s own lawyers flagged: a culture of noncompliance.

Much more at the link.

RELATED? DOJ Wants To Keep Justification For Raiding Reported Clinton Foundation Whistleblower Secret.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT OVER THE WEEKEND: “I Know Where All The Bodies Are Buried”: Clinton Foundation CFO Spills Beans To Investigators.

SAD: Bill and Hillary Clinton selling discounted tickets on Groupon after sparse crowds on speaking tour.

It’s been a long time coming, but have the Clintons finally run out of juice?

FORGET IT, JAKE — IT’S VOX: Why women have better sex under socialism, according to an anthropologist.

And as Stephen Miller points out on Twitter, the young adult infotainment site can’t seem to even provide original clickbait anymore:

And from the replies: “It is a known fact that sex is always better when the government owns the means of reproduction.”

Heh™.

UPDATE: And at the PJ Live Blog, a few #SocialistPickupLines.

CHANGE: Bipartisan Push to Legalize Hemp Approved in Farm Bill. “‘At a time when farm income is down and our growers are struggling, industrial hemp is a bright spot of agriculture’s future,’ says Mitch McConnell.”

PRIVACY: Your Phone Is Tracking Your Every Movement. Here’s What You Can Do About It. “A recent NYT investigation found a broad surveillance effort affecting over 200 million Americans.”

YUGE: Trump administration’s Waters of the United States rule gives power back to states.

At issue is the extent of the federal government’s control over our nation’s waters. Under the Clean Water Act, the federal government has jurisdiction over navigable waters — defined as the “waters of the United States.” Federal regulators and the courts have broadened this definition over time, moving from waters a vessel can navigate to ponds and wetlands as well. The definition may seem like a trivial technicality, but it has enormous consequences for land use decisions nationwide.

In 2015, the Obama EPA put forward a definition that further expanded Washington’s reach into privately owned lands. They claimed it was in the interest of water quality. But it was really about power — power in the hands of the federal government over states and landowners. The Missouri Farm Bureau, for example, estimates that bodies of water — from streams to ephemeral drainage ditches — in over 95 percent of the state’s land area could come under the purview of the federal government. The rule was issued in spite of the fact that Missouri, and most other states, already have their own protections for waters within their borders, regardless of whether they are federally regulated as waters of the United States.

More like this, please.

COMPETITION: Hertz Rolls Out a Faster Airport Exit So You Don’t Hail An Uber.

Available to Gold Plus Rewards members, the service relies on biometrics (fingerprints, iris scans, and facial scans) for its checkout system. To use it, you first need a Clear account with your biometric data contained within, linked to your Gold Plus Rewards account. Grab a car, and your physical identity will be confirmed via facial scan an automated kiosk at the exit gate.

“Prior to the use of Clear, we have an exit gate process that takes two minutes on average,” said Jodi Allen, chief marketing officer at Hertz, told Bloomberg. “As a result of putting Clear in place we’re able to get our customers out the exit gate in 30 seconds or less, which is a 75 percent improvement. On Monday mornings in Atlanta where there are surge customers, making sure we can get people out significantly faster makes everybody’s experience better.”

That’s a real boon for existing rewards customers.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Chuck, Nancy and Donald and Much, Much More.