LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Counting ‘Til They Turn Blue and Much, Much More. “I don’t even know what is going on in Florida it’s such a hot mess.”

They don’t know in Florida. They just know to keep counting until they get the desired result.

DEMOGRAPHICS: New population research shows half the world’s countries are disappearing.

HE’S FLAILING: Zuckerberg says he learned of Definers through NYT story.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that he was unaware that his company hired a right-leaning political consulting firm to stave off its opponents while voicing his respect for Democratic mega-donor George Soros.

Zuckerberg spoke hours after the tech giant cut ties with Definers Public Affairs, a political consulting firm that The New York Times reported Wednesday had accused Soros of funding a group of Facebook’s progressive opponents.

The Facebook chief said during a conference call with reporters that he learned about Facebook’s relationship with the firm through the Times report the previous day.

“I have tremendous respect for George Soros,” Zuckerberg said, adding that he would not want his company to be associated with a firm that deploys those tactics.

“This type of firm might be normal in Washington but it’s not the kind of thing that I want Facebook associated with, which is why we’re no longer going to be working with them,” Zuckerberg said during the call.

What’s really interesting is that even the once much-more-respectable The Hill frames it as some kind of sin to hire a right-leaning firm.

SHOCKER: After Winning Election, Democrat Ilhan Omar Now Says She ‘Supports BDS Movement.’

Omar, a Muslim Somali-American elected last week to replace outgoing Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) in the House, fought accusations that she held anti-Israel views during her campaign. As part of that effort, she told a group of Jewish voters in the state that she opposed the economic boycott of Israel, calling it “counteractive” and “not helpful in getting that two-state solution.”

But Omar’s tune has changed since winning the election. In an interview published Sunday by MuslimGirl, Omar said she “supports the BDS movement.”

“Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized,” her campaign told MuslimGirl, which said Omar had been criticized for coming out against BDS. Omar’s campaign also pointed MuslimGirl to her vote against an anti-BDS bill in Minnesota’s state legislature and her argument that boycott movements were successful in South Africa.

The comment is seen as a complete reversal by members of the Jewish community in her district.

Well, they were suckers.

FRAUD: GoFundMe campaign to help homeless vet was ‘predicated on a lie,’ prosecutor says.

Every shred of the trio’s story, including the part that Bobbitt used his last $20 to help McClure out of a roadside jam when she ran out of gas, was all bogus, Coffina said.

“The entire campaign was predicated on a lie,” Coffina said. “Less than an hour after the GoFundMe campaign went live McClure, in a text exchange with a friend, stated that the story about Bobbitt assisting her was fake.”

In one of the texts read by Coffina, McClure allegedly wrote to a friend, “Ok, so wait, the gas part is completely made up but the guy isn’t. I had to make something up to make people feel bad. So, shush about the made up stuff.”

Caveat emptor. And if you are conspiring to commit a crime, don’t do it on your smartphone.

FLORIDA, MAN: Officer in Parkland shooting fights subpoena and refuses to testify. “The school resource officer, criticized for not entering the building to confront the Parkland shooter, will not testify in an investigation of the shooting. Scot Peterson’s lawyer, Joseph DiRuzzo III, told CNN that the former resource officer was subpoenaed to testify before a state commission investigating the February school shooting that left 17 people dead. DiRuzzo filed a three-point suit on Thursday to fight that subpoena and keep his client from having to appear at this week’s hearings.”

NOT EXACTLY AN EXCULPATORY STATEMENT: Michael Avenatti Blames Pro-Trumper for Arrest: ‘I Am Coming for You Jacob Wohl aka Surefire.’

CONSERVATIVES NOT WELCOME, EH: David Solway explains “Why I Am No Longer a Canadian Writer.”

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Just How Bad Are Those Payouts for Amazon HQ2? “Governor Cuomo has the self-awareness of a sea sponge soaked in cask-strength bourbon.”

MICHAEL WALSH HAS A FEW THINGS TO SAY TO EMMANUEL MACRON: Did Nationalism Cause World War One?

For an in-depth an unorthodox look at the real causes of World War One, I can’t recommend Donald Kagan’s On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace highly enough.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED THAT ELECTION FRAUD WAS A MYTH: Florida Dems planned to use altered forms to fix mail ballots across state after deadline.

TONI AIRAKSINEN: USC Library Censors Article on ‘Female Privilege in Prison Sentencing.’

If you can’t do the time, don’t be a guy.

ASSUMING HE EVER DID: Chuck Schumer no longer believes conceding defeat is ‘gentlemanly thing to do.’

ONE SECOND AFTER: Pentagon Researchers Test ‘Worst-Case Scenario’ Attack on U.S. Power Grid.

COLD WAR II: GPS jamming came from Kola, Defense Ministry in Norway confirms.

On November 2nd, the Barents Observer published the first news about the jamming of GPS signals in the airspace between Kirkenes and Lyngen. Last Friday, Finnish broadcaster YLE reported about similar warnings issued by aviation authorities to pilots flying over northern Finland.

Birgitte Frisch says it is for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to elaborate on the dialogue with Russian officials about the jamming.

As previously reported by the Barents Observer, the Foreign Ministry brought up the question with Moscow after a similar jamming in March this year and requested Russia to halt such jamming. Last week, Deputy Director of Communication with the Foreign Ministry, Kristin Enstad, was not willing to share with the readers of Barents Observer what was said in the dialoge with Russian authorities.

Lina Lindegaard, press-officer with regional airliner Widerøe, told Barents Observer about one of their flights losing GPS signals.

Russia is, to mangle a phrase, the sick man of Eurasia. But unlike the Ottoman Empire during its long decline, Putin’s Russia is determined to play the role of vicious spoiler. The trick is to help manage Russia’s senescence without provoking them into doing something really futile and stupid on a major scale.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. ‘Democratic socialists’ really need to learn more about socialism.

EVEN MORE FACEBOOK BLUE-ON-BLUE: Tech Leaders Turn on Zuckerberg: Facebook Having a ‘Devastating Effect on the World.’ “The CEO of Salesforce calls the platform ‘the new cigarettes’.”

JOHN ELLIS: Alexa Apologizes to Cities That Lost Amazon HQ2 Bid. “Alexa should be apologizing to the two places that Amazon picked.”

THE NEW REPUBLIC: Facebook Betrayed America.

While Zuckerberg was sitting doe-eyed before Congress, insisting that Facebook only wants to connect people, his company was in fact imitating some of the worst behavior on Facebook to counter the barrage of negative stories the company was facing.

Zuckerberg may have insisted that all of the criticism of Facebook was a byproduct of the company’s core mission, but a crisis PR firm contracted by Facebook linked the site’s critics to George Soros, the liberal Jewish billionaire who is often at the center of right-wing attacks and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. At the same time, top executives, notably Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, were discouraging it from investigating Russian activity on the site.

This response exposes the hypocrisy at the center of the company: While Zuckerberg was promising to return to the company’s utopian vision of bringing humanity closer together, it was doing everything it could to sow division, all in order to steer clear of negative coverage and eventual regulation.

I don’t agree with much of Alex Shephard’s analysis here, and post this only to point out that Facebook is now in a position where it can’t make anyone happy. That’s a bad place to be for such a fat, rich target.

PARKLAND SHOOTER: Nikolas Cruz Allegedly Flipped Off and Assaulted Jail Guard Before Grabbing Stun Gun.

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF: An open letter to my American friends, re: your shambolic election process.

I write this not with condescension or glee but as a friend who wants to help. Furthermore, I write as an Australian, from a country, which has always been on the forefront of electoral best practice and thus has much to offer by way of experience and example. In 1856, the state of South Australia adopted universal male suffrage as well as secret ballot as a way to conduct election, the latter reform adopted later that year by Tasmania and Victoria and over the next few years by the remaining states. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, political reformers in the United States and Great Britain would fight – eventually successfully – for the adoption of “the Australian ballot”, as it became known overseas. It is now the international standard. It seems to me that it’s time for America to again look Down Under for inspiration on how to improve its democratic process. Our Australian system is not perfect and it’s not 100 per cent foolproof (what is?) but it has been by and large free of fraud or the perception of fraud and its integrity is acknowledged by all sides of politics as well as the general voting public (voting in Australia is compulsory but I don’t recommend it for the US).

What follows is solid advice.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Judge Decides CNN’s LOLsuit Today and Much, Much More. “We can confirm that today LAPD Detectives arrested Michael Avenatti on suspicion of domestic violence. This is an ongoing investigation and we will provide more details as they become available.”

Does this mean we’re returning to a presumption of innocence for everybody? Because that would be nice.

POSTMODERN WARFARE: The F-35’s Greatest Vulnerability Isn’t Enemy Weapons. It’s Being Hacked.

Every F-35 squadron, no matter the country, has a 13-server ALIS package that is connected to the worldwide ALIS network. Individual jets send logistical data back to their nation’s Central Point of Entry, which then passes it on to Lockheed’s central server hub in Fort Worth, Texas. In fact, ALIS sends back so much data that some countries are worried it could give away too much information about their F-35 operations.

Another networking system is the Joint Reprogramming Enterprise, or JRE. The JRE maintains a shared library of potential adversary sensors and weapon systems that is distributed to the worldwide F-35 fleet. For example, the JRE will seek out and share information on enemy radar and electronic warfare signals so that individual air forces will not have to track down the information themselves. This allows countries with the F-35 to tailor the mission around anticipated threats—and fly one step ahead of them.

Although the networks have serious cybersecurity protections, they will undoubtedly be targets for hackers in times of peace, and war. Hackers might try to bring down the networks entirely, snarling the worldwide logistics system and even endangering the ability of individual aircraft to get much-needed spare parts.

As aerospace engineer Will Collier explained to me several years ago, the F-35’s main strength is its sensor suite and networking capabilities. But that also introduces new vulnerabilities, as this report underscores.

KABUKI: Pelosi unfazed as unhappy Dems claim votes to block her rise.

For two days now, disgruntled Democrats have claimed they have 17 names on a letter opposing Pelosi’s leadership, promising to air the document soon. They say those signing on are pledging to vote against the Californian when the full chamber elects the next speaker on Jan. 3.

Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., confirmed the letter Tuesday, and an aide to an organizer of the effort said it stood at 17 names as of Wednesday. The aide was not authorized to discuss the letter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pelosi, asked by a reporter about her message to rebellious colleagues, challenged them to put forward an alternate candidate for speaker.

“Come on in, the water’s warm,” she said.

Pelosi is one of the best vote-counters her party has ever produced. If she weren’t confident about the result, it seems likely she’d have found an excuse to step aside already.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT ASSAULT: She Accused A Cop Of Sexual Battery. Here’s How Her Story Fell Apart.