IT’S ON: Bannon vs Drudge.

WHY NOT? TWITTER SUSPENDS CONSERVATIVES FOR ANY OR NO REASON AT ALL: Hillary’s Spokesman Calls For Trump To Be Banned From Twitter Over Nuke Tweet.

CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: ‘Dirty, bloody and lots of sex’: how Denis Villeneuve’s Cleopatra will rip up Hollywood’s rule book.

Actually, HBO already did that with Cleopatra as a supporting character in its Rome miniseries from more than a decade ago.

Even Hollywood’s new ideas are old.

LEON PANETTA TURNS: Former Obama Official Calls Obama unAmerican on Iran Protests.

CRACKDOWN: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Declares “The End Of The ’96 Sedition.”

Ed Morrissey:

The mullahs apparently didn’t want to wait to see whether its Astroturf protests would turn things around for them. Interestingly, they’re aiming the crackdown outside of Tehran and Qom, the two most significant cities for the ruling mullahs, and probably the most accessible to outside journalists. They want to quell the uprising outside of the view of the world, but more importantly, outside the view of other Iranians to the greatest extent possible.

This becomes the critical point of the uprising. The mullahs needed to act before the spirit of revolution infected the IRGC, but also before it got too far among the population. If the latter is true, an armed response to demonstrations might provoke an even wider rebellion that could overwhelm the IRGC. That’s why the mullahs waited this long before ordering their palace guards to open fire on the regime’s subjects. If they’ve mistimed the crackdown, it might be an end to the mullahs’ run of 7th-century rule by 21st-century technology.

At this point, however, the mullahs have given an opening for international intervention, including the reapplication of sanctions that the deal with Barack Obama ended. Donald Trump has been itching to reinstate those sanctions but has been held off by both the deal and our Western allies, who wanted to consider the matter closed. If the IRGC is opening fire on unarmed Iranians for dissent, they will have no choice but to take action, and it might even force Russia and China to allow for emergency action from the UN Security Council. That will make the economic situation even worse, which will prompt more protests — and perhaps disincentivize the IRGC rank and file in the longer run.

Watch for reports from dissenters about the status of the protests.

That might not be easy given Tehran’s social media crackdown, but to paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm, dissent finds a way.

CHANGE: Israeli lawmakers advance bill on death penalty for ‘terrorists.’

Scare quotes courtesy of Agence France-Presse.

HMM: Russia’s radar shortcomings are a US problem now.

Gaps and limitations in Russia’s early warning capability have long been documented by foreign observers. And while North Korea has never been the adversary Russian radars are designed to watch, a failure to see North Korean ICBMs could mean Russia instead detects missile interceptors fired by the United States as a unique threat, rather than a response to a launch by Pyongyang. (Joshua Pollack explored that possibility, complete with diagrams and maps in 2009.)

In December 2016 Russia boasted that it completed construction of its early-warning coverage, and in December 2017, Russia’s Air and Space Forces announced the start of combat operations at its last three early warning sites.

And there remains a curious omission: Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov took until December to acknowledge that North Korea had any ICBMs at all, and even then, only acknowledged the November test of the much larger Hwasong-15.

All this leaves a distinct possibility that, should North Korea launch a Hwasong-14, Russia would be unable to see the smaller ICBM as what it actually is, and in what would invariably be a tense hour, might misread actions and intentions after that point.

That’s disconcerting.

MICHAEL LEDEEN: The Iranian Regime’s Days May Be Numbered.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Dave Chappelle Compares Trump Election to Emmitt Till’s Death.

THAT’S BECAUSE WESTERN FEMINISTS DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT WOMEN WHO ARE ACTUALLY OPPRESSED: Feminist Groups Embarrassingly Silent On Iran Protests.

THE GAS RATION HAS BEEN INCREASED FROM FOUR LITERS TO THREE: Oil-Rich Venezuela Is Out Of Gasoline.

“Gentlemen: There is no more gasoline in Venezuela. In Venezuela, we are out of gas. In Venezuela, there is no gas oil. In Venezuela, there are no lube oils,” said Iván Freites in a televised press conference. Freites is the secretary of the professional and technician division of the United Federation of Venezuelan Petroleum Workers.

In his address, Freites said that poor management led to the stoppage of 80 per cent of the country’s refineries. “Only Amuay and Cardón refineries are operative and that is nothing. They produce 40,000 barrels per day and the national demand is over 200,000 barrels of gas per day,” he said.

Venezuela’s oil production has fallen to levels not seeing since the late-1980s. According to the latest OPEC report, which is based on information provided by the Nicolás Maduro government, the country is producing about 2.3 million barrels of oil per day. In October, it experienced the steepest fall in production of 2017, as only 1.9 million barrels were extracted, 130,000 barrels less than the previous month. The oil industry, however, is still the major source of income as it generates about 96 per cent of the foreign exchange.

“Can you imagine how much it would be to bring our refineries back to operation? To recover production in the Eastern Coast of the Lake (of Maracaibo)?” Iván Freites asked during the media brief.

A question Venezuelans need to ask, and loudly: “Where did the money go?”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: RUSSIA Reboot, Clinton Email Investigation ‘Irregular’ and Much, Much More.

HAVE THEY BEEN READING GLENN REYNOLDS? New bill could finally get rid of paperless voting machines.

Computer scientists have been warning for more than a decade that these machines are vulnerable to hacking and can’t be meaningfully audited. States have begun moving away from paperless systems, but budget constraints have forced some to continue relying on insecure paperless equipment. The Secure Elections Act would give states grants specifically earmarked for replacing these systems with more secure systems that use voter-verified paper ballots.

The legislation’s second big idea is to encourage states to perform routine post-election audits based on modern statistical techniques. Many states today only conduct recounts in the event of very close election outcomes. And these recounts involve counting a fixed percentage of ballots. That often leads to either counting way too many ballots (wasting taxpayer money) or too few (failing to fully verify the election outcome).

The Lankford bill would encourage states to adopt more statistically sophisticated procedures to count as many ballots as needed to verify an election result was correct—and no more.

We talked to two election security experts who praised the legislation and urged Congress to pass it quickly.

All is proceeding exactly as Glenn has foreseen.

DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE: 5 Worst Echo Chamber Talking Points About The Iranian Uprising.

The New York Times leads of course:

The initial coverage of these historic protests—or in some cases, the lack of it—was scandalous. The New York Times’s Thomas Erdbrink, in particular, veered into revolting Walter Duranty territory. Looking back at the paper’s coverage of Iran, it’s unsurprising.

“For many years,” the reporter wrote only last month, “many Iranians were cynical about their leaders, but that is changing thanks to Trump and the Saudi crown prince.” Every unfiltered report from Iran told a different story.

Actually, thanks to Trump, the Times’ coverage swerved unconvincingly from “The protests are only small and and not worth your attention’” to “These protests are about economic woes and have nothing to do with political disputes and are not worth your attention” to the “Violence is the protesters’ fault because they won’t listen to the regime’s calls for calm.” All of this is particularly offputting when you consider how hard some in the media worked to make the Iran deal a reality.

Read the whole thing.

CHANGE? As Caps on Federal Deductions Begin, High-Tax States Seek a New Scheme.

LAWRENCE MEYERS: It’s Only Been the Apocalypse for Democrats.

Ever since The Day Democrats Reached Out, I’ve been watching the hilarious hyperbolic reactions to every Trump tweet, and each piece of lint that flutters through the Oval Office. The Democrat reaction to every single move by the Trump Administration amounts to, “We’re all gonna die”.

Remember the mass deportation of Mexicans? Neither do I. Yet we we’re all gonna die. My Democrat friends here in Southern Wackyfornia told me that their maids and nannies were terrified that they were going to be rounded up because Trump was a racist.

Remember the mass deportation of Muslims? Neither do I. Yet we we’re all gonna die. During the March of the Week Spectacular that occurred early in 2017, Democrats clogged airports to protest the 90-day visa hold – a policy enacted merely to ensure the safety of Americans.

Remember how Trump’s election empowered hate groups to go and beat innocent minorities, and that we were all gonna die? Neither do I. What I do remember is the leftist group ANTIFA, whose very name epitomizes the phrase “unintended irony”, beating the crap out of innocent Americans and starting riots every chance they got – oh, but usually to shut down free speech. It was so bad in Berkeley that even the Washington Post couldn’t ignore the truth.

Remember how Trump is Hitler and Steve Bannon is a white nationalist – and that we we’re all gonna die? Neither do I. I never quite understood how Trump could be Hitler given his staunch support of Israel, and having the courage to do what no other President did by acknowledging Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Election Day, 2018 will mark two years of turn-it-up-past-11 fear-mongering from the Left. The “professional left,” as Obama called it, seems to thrive on the constant shrieking, but you have to wonder how much good it’s doing with the more moderate voters they’ll need to mobilize for an off-year election.

GRATITUDE: After India’s Anti-Israel UN Vote, ‘Palestinian’ Envoy Pals Around with Mastermind of Mumbai Terror Attack.

Almost a week after India’s vote against the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a senior Palestinian diplomat got into hot water for publicly fraternizing with one of India’s most wanted terrorist. Palestinian ‘Ambassador’ to Pakistan, Waleed Abu Ali, jointly addressed a rally with Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 164 people and injured 308. The rally hosted by an alliance of Islamic groups was held to condemn the US decision to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State. The event took place in the northern Pakistan city of Rawalpindi.

Saeed, a Pakistani national, is the co-founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an outfit designated as terrorist organization by the US, India and several Western countries. India has been seeking Saeed’s extradition in connection with the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Pakistan has refused to comply with Indian requests and refused to place restrictions his activities within Pakistan.

The Anglosphere is never going to work so long as India holds onto its tired and outdated Third World solidarity schtick.

DON’T CALL HIM; HE’LL CALL YOU: Leaked meeting notes show how panicked Iranian regime considered stopping deadly protests: ‘God help us.’

A leaked report provided to Fox News shows how Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with political leaders and heads of the country’s security forces to discuss how to tamp down on the deadly nationwide protests.

The report covered several meetings up to December 31 and was provided to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) from what it said were high level sources from within the regime.

The meeting notes, which have been translated into English from Farsi, said the unrest has hurt every sector of the country’s economy and “threatens the regime’s security. The first step, therefore, is to find a way out of this situation.”

“Get the hell out of my way!” the wise man once said.

BRUCE BAWER: Old Chestnuts to Mark a New Year.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS UNNECESSARY AND OVERPRICED SECURITY RISKS: Otto, maker of the $700 smart lock, suspends operations.

YES IT IS: Restricting the Deduction for State and Local Taxes Is a Big [Expletive Deleted] Deal.

SOCIAL JUSTICE MEDIA: Twitter Suspends Mohammad Cartoonist Bosch Fawstin. “Yet those who threatened to KILL Fawstin are not banned.”

Bosch would have been treated better if he had threatened to cut somebody’s head off instead of drawing a cartoon — because wrongthink by the wrong people is worse than violence or threats of violence from the right people.

BUT MORE GUNS EQUALS MORE GUN DEATHS OR SOMETHING: Don’t Tell Anybody, But Accidental Shooting Deaths Are Way Down.

WHY NOT? OBAMA IGNORED THEM NINE YEARS AGO. For Some Reason, Obama Officials Want People to Ignore Iran Protests.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED IN 2009 THAT “BUSINESS CLIMATE” WAS A MYTH: New Wave of Optimism Prompts Business Investment: The ‘Trump Effect” Will Cause Leftist Heads to Explode.